Scientific Method

Scientific Method -A process of conducting experiments to test if a hypothesis is true or false. 

The scientific method is generally performed with 6 steps:

1) Purpose/Question- Ask a question.

2)Research- Conduct background research. Interview experts on a topic. The more you know about a subject, the easier it will be to conduct your investigation.

3) Hypothesis - Propose a hypothesis. Usually, a hypothesis is written in terms of cause and effect.

4) Experiment- Design and perform an experiment to test your hypothesis. An experiment has an independent and dependent variable.

5) Data/Analysis - Record observations and analyze the meaning of the data. Often, you'll prepare a table or graph of the data. Once you have the data, you may need to perform a mathematical analysis to support or refute your hypothesis.

6) Conclusion- Conclude whether to accept or reject your hypothesis. There is no right or wrong outcome to an experiment. The results may be compiled into a lab report or formally submitted as a paper.

In an experiment there are Three Variables:

1-Controlled Variables: You can have as many controlled variables as you like. These are parts of the experiment that you try to keep constant throughout an experiment so that they won't interfere with your test. Writing down controlled variables is a good idea because it helps make your experiment reproducible, which is important in science! If you have trouble duplicating results from one experiment to another, there may be a controlled variable that you missed.

2-Independent Variable: This is the variable you control.

3-Dependent Variable: This is the variable you measure. It is called the dependent variable because it depends on the independent variable.