Chapter 1 The Nature of Science Section 1 What is science?

Objectives  Define science and identify questions that science cannot answer  Compare and contrast theories and laws  Identify the three main branches of science

 Science is a way of learning more about the natural world.  Scientists want to know why, how, or when something occurred.  Scientist ask many questions, but some can not be answered by science

 Science can not answer questions about art, politics, personal preference, or morality.  Science can’t tell you what is right, wrong, good, or bad.  Science can answer questions only with the information available at that time.

 Science can’t answer questions with certainty because new information is being discovered all the time. People will never know everything about the world around them.

 Scientific theories explain patterns in nature  Theories are not simply guesses or opinions  Theories are not vague ideas  Theories must be supported by observations and results from many investigations  As new data become available, scientists evaluate it if it does not support the theory then the theory is changed to fit it.

 Scientific law is a rule that describes a pattern in nature  For an observation to become a law it must be observed repeatedly  A law predicts that if you drop an apple it will fall it does not explain how gravity works or why it exists  A law does not explain why something happened it just tells what happened

 The difference between a theory and a law is the theory explains or gives an explanation for why something happened the law describes or tells what happened  Scientific law example- “The Sun rises in the east every morning”.  Scientific theory example- “The Sun rises every day because gravity keeps Earth in orbit around the Sun”.

 The three main branches of science are life science, Earth science, and physical science.  Life science is the study of living systems and the ways in which they interact  Physical science is the study of physics and chemistry  Earth science is the study of Earth systems and the systems in space

 Technology is the practical use or application of science in our everyday lives.  Using scientific knowledge to create something is technology  Example- The study of how to use the energy of sunlight is science. Using this knowledge to create solar panels is technology.