Holly J. Arthur
Harvard Extension School
Universal Design for Learning Final Project
May 20, 2009
- Use the TIMER to help pace yourself as you read
- Click on coaches Ike, Marie and Chuck for support as you read
Table of Contents
Introduction
Goals
What do scientists do?
What is the scientific method?
- Make observations and gather information
- Generate a hypothesis
- Design an experiment
- Collect data
- Analyze your data & interpret results
- Communicate your results
Why is the scientific method useful?
Examples
Example 1: Homework and Grades
- Assessment
Example 2: soda and height
- Assessment
Review
Does microwaved water kill plants?
- Final assessment
Introduction
You come home from school and turn on the computer. You plan to check your email, but notice a news story at the top of the screen. It reads, “Important discovery: your microwave might make you sick!” This makes you worry, because you just cooked a snack in the microwave and now wonder if it might be dangerous to your health! You want to learn more about this warning, like what caused people to think that microwaves are dangerous. You want to be safe, but also like using the microwave to make snacks and wonder if it is really important to stop using it. You decide to do some investigating before making a decision.
You can take notes on what you just read using these links.
Goals
The goal of this lesson is to help you learn what science is and what scientists do.
Knowing this can help you to make smart decisions and to understand the things that you see, hear and read in your everyday life.
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What do scientists do?
Scientists observe what is happening in the world. They ask questions about how the world works based on what they see, make educated guesses about the answers to their questions, and do studies to look for answers. They believe that it is possible to figure out how things work, even though it may take many tries to get it right.
Scientists keep an open mind. They are willing to reconsider what they thought they already knew if new information becomes available.
Scientists look for answers to many kinds of questions, including questions about living things, chemicals, and things too small to be seen with the eye. They also ask questions about behavior.
Want to know more? Read about some famous scientists
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What is the scientific method?
Most scientific studies follow specific steps. Many people do not consider a study to be scientific unless it includes all of these steps. These steps make up the scientific method.
- Make observations and gather information
- Generate a hypothesis
- Design an experiment
- Collect data
- Analyze your data & interpret results
- Communicate your results
You can take notes on what you just read using these links.
You can take notes on what you just read and watched using these links.
A hypothesis is a statement that explains why things happen the way they do, or are the way they are. A hypothesis can be tested. A statement that cannot be tested ("The meaning of life is...") does not make a good scientific hypothesis.
A hypothesis is based on your observations and information you have gathered. This is why it is sometimes called an "educated guess."
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After coming up with your a hypothesis, you can design an experiment - a procedure you will follow to find out if your hypothesis is correct.
You can take notes on what you just read using these links.
When you do your experiment, it is important to collect data. This means keeping track of everything you do, and what happens as a result.
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After you have finished doing your experiment, review your data. What patterns do you see? What does this information tell you about the questions you were trying to answer?
Do the results show that your hypothesis was correct, or does it need to be changed?
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Scientists share their results with other scientists. Other scientists may want to do the experiment again to see if they get the same results.
Scientists also share their results with the public.
Find out more about how scientists share their work:
The New York Times science news: new discoveries shared with the public
PubMed (a database of articles written by scientists)
Nova: some scientists talk about their work on TV
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Why is the scientific method useful?
- The steps of the scientific method allow different scientists to do their work in similar ways. When everyone uses the same steps, it is easier for one scientist to compare their work with another scientist’s work.
- Often, one scientist will repeat an experiment that was done by another scientist. If the same results occur over and over, we can feel more confident that these results are correct.
- Sometimes you will learn about studies that do not seem to follow these steps. The results of these studies may not be as useful as the results of studies that do.
You can take notes on what you just read using these links.
Examples
Next let's look at some examples of different types of studies. Think about whether each one uses the scientific method, and what the results tell us. After each example there will be a quiz.
- You usually spend one hour every night doing your homework. When you only spend half an hour doing homework, you notice that your grade usually goes down by two points.
- You predict that kids who usually spend more time doing their homework usually get higher grades.
- To find out if this is true, you ask everyone at school to tell you their average grade and how long they usually spend doing homework.
- After adding up their replies, you discover that most kids who spend an hour doing homework have an average grade 2 points higher than kids who do homework for half an hour eacn night.
- It looks like your hypothesis was correct, but you also decide to think about other reasons why you could have gotten these results.
- You tell your science teacher about your study, and she decides to have the whole class repeat the experiment for a project. This time everyone will give their answers anonymously.
Find out more. What do other scientists have to say about the link between homework and grades?
Article: Video games and reading
PubMed - Find scientific articles
You can take notes on what you just read using these links.
Assessment: please answer one
- Do you think the homework study followed the steps of the scientific method? Why or why not?
- What are some other reasons why kids who spend more time doing homework could get better grades?
Example 2: soda and height
- Your mom read a magazine story that says kids who drink soda aren’t as tall as kids who never drink soda. The article calls this an important scientific discovery.
- The story was written by a man who owns a restaurant. He observed that customers who order soda usually look shorter than customers who order water.
- He became extremely curious about how soda could keep someone from growing taller, and decided to read many books about nutrition to look for answers.
- After looking at dozens of books, he decided that the sugar in soda makes it hard for people’s bodies to absorb important vitamins, and this causes them to stop growing.
- Many books also mentioned that many kids who drink soda do not eat as much healthy food as kids who don’t drink soda. The restaurant owner did not mention this in his article because he didn’t think it was important.
Find out more: What have people discovered about soda and the body?
Article: Tax soda to encourage healthy choices?
PubMed - Find scientific articles
You can take notes on what you just read using these links.
Assessment: Please answer two
- Did the restaurant owner follow the steps of the scientific method? Why or why not?
- Many kids who drink soda don’t eat as much healthy food as kids who don’t drink soda. Why might this be an important thing to know?
- Should your mom stop letting you drink soda because of the things she read in this article?
- The goal of this lesson is to learn what science is, what scientists do, and how understanding how science can help you to make decisions in your everyday life.
- Scientists observe, ask questions, develop ways to look for answers to their questions, collect data, analyze their results, and compare their results with their predictions. If their results do not match their predictions, they come up with new hypotheses. This processes is called the scientific method.
- Scientists share their results with other scientists.
- The scientific method can be used to find answers to "real world" questions about things like school, food, and health.
- Some things are called scientific, but they were not discovered using the scientific method. It is important to look carefully at "scientific" things when deciding if they are true, false, or need more investiagtion.
You can take notes on what you just read using these links.
Final Assessment: Does microwaved water harm plants?
- Your best friend sent you an email with story of a young girl’s science project. The email says that the story is true, and when you look online you find many web pages that also say that the story is true.
- The girl decided to do a study to see if water heated in the microwave is bad for plants. She found that a plant given microwaved water (then cooled off) soon died. A second plant, given water boiled on the stove (then cooled off), did not die.
- She concluded that the microwave did something to the water to make it dangerous for plants. She also concluded that if microwaved water causes plants to die, it is probably also bad for people.
Find out more about microwaves and how they might impact plants:
Read the email mentioned in this example
Video: this man wanted to find out for himself
You can take notes on what you just read using these links.
