An example of
the scientific method
The following
example is something that can be done by a small number of students
just about anywhere.
The problem: Boys and girls have
different responses to many thing. Can we measure the difference
in reaction time of boys and girls physical reflexes?
Gather information: By looking online we
found that some experiments show a measurable difference between
boys and girls. Some do not.
Hypothesis: We believe that there
is a measurable difference in the reactions of boys and girls.
Design an
experiment:
Two things we have in the classroom are students and a meterstick.
We do the experiment in the following steps -
- One student
will hold the meterstick upright, by the top while another student
holds their hand open with their fingers on either side of the
stick.
- When the first
student drops the stick, the second catches it
- A third student
records the distance from the top of the stick to the place where
the student caught it.
- After three
tries, a student of the opposite sex gets a chance.
Analyze the
data:
We made a chart showing each of the three tries by each student.
Girls results were recorded in one color and the boys in another.
We compared the two sets of numbers as well as the change in
the distance over the three tries.
Our conclusion: Our results showed
that there was a difference between how fast boys and girls react
to the dropping stick. Also, we saw that there was a difference
in how fast the two groups learned to shortened the distance.
So, our conculsion There is a measurable difference in reactionto
this stimuli based on sex.
Created
for the NTEP II by the Sandia/CA Education Partnerships
and
Fermilab
LInC
. Hosted by Pleasanton
Unified School District at H.P.
Mohr Elementary School.
Created
by the Sandia/CA LInCing to SUPER! Summer '2000 Team of: Gary
Beebout (Somerset
Middle School, Modesto, CA), Dave Menshew (Mark Twain Jr. High
School, Modesto CA). Page
Owner: Bill Britton Acknowledgment and Disclaimer
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