These activites
are meant to be done with some degree of parent supervision depending
on the age and responsibility level of the participants. But
what about the SCIENTIFIC METHOD?
Well, this is
just a name science folks give to how they go about solving problems
and learning about the world around them. Try a few of these
experiments and see if you don't like them. Pretty soon, whether
ot not you know it, you will be thinking and learning like a
science guy or girl.
The steps of
the scientific method go pretty much like this:
- First, find
a problem you would like to solve or something you would like
to learn about. Write down the problem in the form of a question.
- Learn what
you can about that problem. You do this by asking questions,
perhaps reading, digging around on the Internet, and maybe THINKING!
- Next, you come
up with some kind of guess which you think answers the question.
(Science folks call this guess a hypothesis.)
- Then (and here's
the fun part) you come up with some experiments to test your
guess. Then you do the experiment.
- After you do
the experiment, you look at how it came out. What were your results?
How did it work? Take notes. Re-do the experiment making changes
you think will make it work better.
- Finally, when
you feel you have found an aswer to your question, you have reached
your conclusion!
The short version
of the scientific method looks like this: Click here for an example.
- State the problem
in the form of a question.
- Gather information
- Make a hypothesis.
- Experiment
to test your hypothesis.
- Collect and
analyze your results.
- State a conclusion.
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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