 Observation  Formulate a Hypothesis  Set Up a Controlled Experiment  Organize and Analyzing Data  Drawing Conclusions  Repeating Experiments / Communicating Results

 You observe something and begin to ask a question(s) about what you observe using, “How, What, When, Who, Which, Why, or Where?”  Forms of observations: Descriptions, drawings, photographs, & measurements  Ex: “Why is the grass in my lawn dying?”

 Is a proposed scientific explanation for a set of observations:  "If _____ [I do this] _____, then _____ [this] _____ will happen."  Note: Your hypothesis must attempt to answer the problem.  Make a prediction about will happen if the hypothesis is correct.  Ex: “Watering my lawn would keep the grass from dying.”

 The factors that can change in an experiment are called variables.  A hypothesis should be tested by an experiment in which only one variable is changed at a time.  The group that receives the experimental treatment is called the experimental group.  The group that does not receive the experimental treatment is called the control group.

 Ex: Procedures / Materials: Controlled Group:  grass, location, temperature, time Experimental Group:  Whether or not the grass received water.

 Record your observations and data.  Explain why your results did, or did not, support your hypothesis.  Note: If hypothesis was false, you should construct a new hypothesis or change procedures which will start the process all over.  Ex: Organize data into tables and graphic illustrations in order to explain to others

 Use data from experiment to evaluate the hypothesis and draw a valid conclusion.  Ex: When I watered the lawn for 7 days, most of the grassed was revived.

 More often an experiment can be repeated, the more one become sure of the reliability if their conclusion.  Publish your results.

Environmental Science. (2004). Holt.