1. The Scientific Method

2. The Scientific Method Science: the quest to answer questions about
the world around us
The Scientific Method:
the process we use to answer these
questions

3. The Scientific Method The Scientific Method involves 7 steps:
Observation
Question
Research
Hypothesis
Experiment
Analyze
Conclude

4. The Scientific Method
Observation- You observe something in the world, using your senses.
- Recognize a problem that needs to be solved
AH—Look at this!

5. The Scientific Method Question- You ask a question
about what you observe.
State the problem.
Research –
Find out background information about your question/problem.

6. The Scientific Method Hypothesis- an educated guess about the
answer to your question
that can be tested by an
experiment

7. The Scientific Method Controlled Experiment –
Make sure only one “variable” is tested at a time and that there is a “control” for comparison
“variable” – something that changes
independent: the factor that is varied
dependent: the factor that is measured
“control” – does not contain the IV, serves as a comparison

8. The Scientific Method
Data - Collecting and analyzing data from the experiment that will help to determine if the hypothesis is correct.
Qualitative = describing with words
“It’s really hot and humid outside”
Quantitative = describing with numbers
“It’s 95 degrees and 90% humidity outside”

9. The Scientific Method
Analysis- Analyze the data to verify the hypothesis.
- Verify if the hypothesis you stated is supported or rejected by the data from the experiment.

10. The Scientific Method
Conclusion- do your results support or reject your hypothesis?
- Many experiments need to be conducted with the same results to support the same hypothesis before the information is accepted or published.
-Your results can now be shared with others.

11. The Scientific Method No experiment is a failure!
Even if you did not support
your original claim, you did find
out information that does not
work

12. The Scientific Method Theory:
Different from the “nonscientific” definition, in which theory means “guess”.
A set of related hypothesis that have been tested and confirmed many times by many scientists and a lot of data.
As new data is collected, a current theory can be altered.

13. Case Study
Problem:
A gardener buys two fertilizers for his tomato plants (fertilizer A and fertilizer B). This gardener wants to know which fertilizer will make his tomato plants produce more fruit.

14. Case Study
Now take a few minutes to apply the steps of the scientific method to this problem.
Explain each step
Identify the control
Identify the variables
Determine whether the data is quantitative or qualitative

15. Case Study Research what is known about the problem:
The gardener reads the labels of each fertilizer and tries to find any information he can about these two brands of fertilizers

16. Case Study Hypothesize:
The gardener decides that fertilizer A will probably work better based on the research that has been done on the two products.

17. Case Study Design and Conduct an experiment:
The gardener uses fertilizer A on five of his tomato plants and fertilizer B on the other five tomato plants he has in the garden. He also grows five plants with no fertilizer at all. The gardener is careful to treat the 15 tomato plants in the same manner (watering, exposure to sunlight, soil, etc), except for the use of the different fertilizers in the first two groups.

18. Case Study Design and conduct an experiment cont… Variable: Control:
the fertilizer used in each part of the experiment
Control:
the five tomato plants not being given the fertilizer (serves as the comparison)

19. Case Study Collecting and analyzing data
After a determined period of time, the gardener checks the amount of fruit on the 15 plants in the study.
Because the gardener is counting the number of fruit on each plant, this is quantitative data.

20. Case Study
Data cont…
The results show that the five plants grown with fertilizer B have almost twice as much fruit as the five plants grown with fertilizer A. The five plants without any fertilizer have the least amount of fruit.

21. Case Study Conclusion:
The initial hypothesis that fertilizer A would work better to produce more fruit than fertilizer B was wrong.
Even though his hypothesis was wrong, the gardener learned valuable information

22. Case Study Repeatability and sharing results
In order to be a valid experiment with valid results, it needs to be repeatable with the same outcome.