Formal Lab Reports Biology Honors

1. Title FYI ~ Labs in this class account for 35% of your final grade!! You will be responsible for 1 formal lab write up per unit I will let you know which lab you will need to write up All lab reports should have a heading, title, and be organized

2. Purpose What’s the point of this lab? What are we trying to find out? ALWAYS given in question form!!!!! Ex: Why do students in Mrs. Orwar’s class fall asleep 15 minutes after class starts?

3. Hypothesis Statement (NOT a question!) Specific Specific Based on background information Must include the independent and dependent variables and a prediction! If…is related to…then… – Ex: If students falling asleep in Mrs. Orwar’s class is related to how much sleep they got the night before, then the students who get 8 hours of sleep the night before will not fall asleep in class. You may use a statement but it MUST be testable! – Ex: I believe that students in Mrs. Orwar’s class are falling asleep because they did not get 8 hours of sleep the night before.

4. Equipment List of what you will be using to perform the experiment To receive full credit, you must include amounts of materials used (ex: 10 mL of water)

5. Procedures List form Step-by-step - How are you going to perform the experiment? Can be somewhat abbreviated Ex: Don’t have to say “Turn on faucet to fill 10 mL graduated cylinder with 5 mL of water.” You can say “Fill 10 mL graduated cylinder with 5 mL of water.”

6. Diagrams Pictures/drawings of lab set up I will tell you when your report needs this included

7. Variables Independent variable – What you changed Dependent variable – What you will measure

8. Control & Constants Give your control – What are you including in your experiment as a comparison to your experimental group(s)? List constants – What will you do to keep the variables controlled? – Ex: no students have a snack before bed, no student may hit snooze

9. Data & Observations Vary depending on experiment Use tables to display quantitative data Always title, labels, and units of measure! Descriptions to provide qualitative data

10. Graphs & Analysis MOST IMPORTANT! Graphs – Graphs should ALWAYS have: a title, labels on each axis, and units on each axis – Graphs will be in LINE format unless otherwise instructed Analysis – Paragraph form – What does each piece of data mean? – Discuss trends/the meaning of the graphed data – May include questions provided by teacher

11. Conclusion Also VERY important! Restate your hypothesis State whether it is supported or not (refuted/contradicted) using your data State correct info (explain what really happened if your hypothesis was wrong) How does all of this relate back to the problem? Include areas of improvement if you were to do the lab again – be specific! See me if you would like to see some sample conclusion formats to help you with this