Conducting Experiments

• Starting points for designing an experiment

  1. Observe something about which you are curious
  2. Construct a hypothesis
  3. Plan out the experiment to test the hypothesis
  4. Predict the outcome
  5. Conduct the experiment
  6. Record the results
  7. Repeat past experiments to see if you get the same results
• Procedure - a step-by-step list of how to carry out the experiment
• Control - a trial during which all of the variables are unchanged. It is used as the standard comparison for an experiment
• Constants - all of the variables in an experiment that remains the same
• Variable - a factor that can alter your experiments
• A controlled experiment allows you to test the influence of the variable
• Independent variable - the variable that you change in an experiment
• Dependent variable - the variable that is influenced by the independent variable, the results of your experiment
• Accurate - how close your measured value is to a standard or known value
• Precise - how close two or more measured values are to one another
• Tables - present data in rows and columns

  
• Line graphs - shows the relationship between two variables

  
• Bar graphs - presents data as bars of varying heights or lengths

  
• Circle graphs - think of this as a "pie" chart. Each piece of data is represented by a "slice" of the pie

  
• If your data has small changes in it, for example, an increase from 0.1 to 0.6, you can use a line graph. This format makes small differences more visible
• If you want to show changes as part of a whole, use a circle graph
• If you are tracking large changes over a period of time, or groups of numbers, a bar graph might be best