Scientific Inquiry Scientific Inquiry The Scientific Method Analyzing observations to solve problems

The Problem: Your computer gets an error message You know the problem You ask friends, look on the internet about how others fixed the problem You hypothesize how to fix it You determine the materials you will need You take steps in a given order to fix it You try to fix one area (one variable at a time) It is fixed…yea! What happens if it didn’t work?? It doesn’t work, you reformulate a different hypothesis and start all over again How do you fix it?

This is the Scientific Method Now let’s put it into steps and describe each in detail

Steps of the Scientific Method 1.Observe a problem SSomething has gone wrong SSomeone is sick SSomething has a mutation TThere is an increase in red tides SSomething blew up

Steps of the Scientific Method 2.Research the problem Do not recreate the wheel Look at the internet scientific journals previous experiments

Steps of the Scientific Method 3.Formulate a hypothesis  This is an educated guess  It is educated because you researched the problem prior to developing the hypothesis  A hypothesis is not necessarily correct, many times they must be modified

Steps of the Scientific Method 4.Design an experiment  Design an experiment to test your hypothesis  You must have a control  You must test only one variable at a time

Steps of the Scientific Method 5.Recording and Analyzing Results  Data must be recorded in data tables  Raw data must be included in the lab findings  Data must be manipulated graphically to see if a relationship exists  Original data can be reorganized into different data tables

What is the difference between Quantitative and Qualitative?

Steps of the Scientific Method 6.Draw a conclusion Formulate a scientific theory on the data gathered in the experiment There are no scientific facts, only theories Science changes with time

Pasteur’s Experiment