Standards
SC.912.N.2.2: Identify which questions can be answered through science and which questions are outside the boundaries of scientific investigation, such as questions addressed by other ways of knowing, such as art, philosophy, and religion
SC.912.N.2.1:Identify what is science, what clearly is not science, and what superficially resembles science (but fails to meet the criteria for science)
What is science?
Science is a process that can be used to determine how or why things happens, it can even be used to make predictions about what will happen. It is based upon reason, evidence and controlled experiments to test ideas. Science and the scientific method have existed in one form or another for thousands of years, although it may have gone by a different name depending on the culture or region you examine. Due to the streamlining of the scientific process we have made many technological advancements as a species.
How is science shared?
The fruits of scientific knowledge are often shared online through the use of research journals and publications that allow scientist to publish their research. Examples of such websites are Pubmed or The New England Journal of Medicine . These websites are quite technical and can be difficult to understand for the average person because they are designed to be used by scientist and people very familiar with specialized areas of science.
Components of scientific method
Step 1: Asking a question/Make an observation
As you go through the world you will encounter things that you do not understand or want to figure out. For example if your phone is not working and will not power on you can document this as your first observation/question. You can phrase it as a question such as “why will my phone not turn on?”.
This step is very important for the following reasons;
- Detecting or recording information about the subject of your research
- Is used to formulate your Hypothesis
Background Research
This step is very important because it allows you to gain a greater understanding about the question you are asking or the original problem you observed. The information obtained from performing thorough background research can enable you to appropriately address the subsequent steps in the scientific method like how to design an appropriate experiment.
It is important that you identify reputable sources with which you can use to conduct background research. Reliable sources can include things like; experts in that particular field of study, museums, official government websites like .gov,.edu and search results from research on google scholar. Sources such as news entities may be reputable sources. Commonly unreliable resources for background include but are not limited to; blogs, social media, Wikipedia.org, hearsay, and for-profit companies.
Hypothesis
A hypothesis is a potential explanation or answer for the question you initially had. The hypothesis should be based off of your observations and background research. A hypothesis can be written as an if/then statement like “if hypothesis 1 is correct then I expect to see outcome “A”.” Going back to our phone example one potential hypothesis we could have come up with is something like this, “If the phone is not working due to the phone not being charged, then charging the phone will allow the phone to work”.
Experiment
An experiment is a rigorous process used to test or evaluate a hypothesis. Many people will casually refer to something as an “experiment” but keep in mind that it must test or evaluate a hypothesis. Experiments must be reproducible by other investigators/scientists, meaning people should be able to repeat the experiment with all the same conditions and get the same results.
Experimental Design
Experiments have very key components
Independent Variable (IV)
- What the experimenter purposely changes in the experiment
- An experiment should only have 1 IV
- Test subjects or groups exposed to the IV are also referred to as “treatment groups”
Dependent Variable (DV)
- What you measure in the experiment
- Called dependent because it “depends” on the independent variable
Control
- Portion of the experiment that is not exposed to the independent variable
- There can be entire groups of test subjects not given or exposed to the independent variable, this allows the investigators to have a standard or norm to compare their results to.
Constant
- Features of the experiment that do not change throughout the course of the experiment
- Ideally, everything that can influence the results other than the IV should be kept the same
Results
The results of an experiment may produce lots of information for an investigator to review. This data is often in the form of quantities or amounts that must be represented using numbers. There are 2 main types of data that will be generated from an experiment, subjective and or qualitative data. Subjective data is information obtained by communication, like asking a patient how they felt after a treatment. Objective data can be obtained by using your senses like sight, smell, taste, etc. and may be recorded with numbers. Data that is not reported with numbers is also referred to as “Qualitative“. Data that can be reflected using number is referred to “Quantitative“.
Subjective Data
- Thoughts, feelings, and opinions
- Cannot be seen, heard, felt, smelled, ect.
- Subjective data cannot actually be “wrong”
Objective Data/ possibly Quantitative
- Can be experienced with your senses
- Can be recorded as a real value or number
- Objective data can be “wrong”
Conclusions
The conclusion stage of the scientific method is when a researcher should determine if the results from their experiment prove or disprove their original hypothesis. Clearly stating your conclusion helps the researcher to have confidence in the validity of their hypothesis. Conclusions also help you determine if you must develop a new hypothesis and a new experiment to test it. Following the example from earlier if you allowed the phone to charge but it continues to not turn on then this would indicate that your original hypothesis of “If the phone is not working due to the phone not being charged, then charging the phone will allow the phone to work” is clearly false. A new hypothesis that can be generated and tested could be “If the lithium battery powering my phone is faulty then replacing it will allow my phone to work”. Negative findings from an experiment can be very useful and should not be looked at with disappointment, they present you with the opportunity to eliminate unlikely explanations and get closer to figuring out what is really happening.
- If your results DID support your Hypothesis then repeat and do it multiple times!
- If your results did NOT support your Hypothesis then REVISE your hypothesis to match the results and then experiment again.
Ways to reflect data
- Bar Graph- Often used to display quantities
- Line Graph- Often shows a trends or changes over time.
- Pie Chart- Shows portions of a whole
Metric System
The metric system is used by scientists around the world because it is a standardized system of measurement. This means that no matter where you are in the world, you can use the same units of measurement and get the same results. This is important for conducting experiments and making comparisons between different studies. The metric system is also easy to use because it is based on the number 10, which makes conversions between units straightforward.
The metric system is based on the following units of measurement:
- The meter (m) is the unit of length.
- The kilogram (kg) is the unit of mass.
- The second (s) is the unit of time.
- The kelvin (K) is the unit of temperature.
- The mole (mol) is the unit of amount of substance.
In the metric system, prefixes are used to indicate the magnitude of a unit. For example, the prefix “kilo-” means “thousand,” so one kilometer is equal to 1000 meters. The prefixes used in the metric system and their corresponding values are as follows:
| Prefix | Symbol | Quantity | Scientific Notation |
| Nano- | (n) | one billionth | 10^-9 |
| Micro- | (μ) | one millionth | 10^-6 |
| Milli | (m) | one thousandth | 10^-3 |
| Centi- | (c) | one hundredth | 10^-2 |
| Deci | (d) | one tenth | 10^-1 |
| Deca- | (da) | Ten | 10^1 |
| Hecto- | (h) | hundred | 10^2 |
| Kilo- | (k) | thousand | 10^3 |
| Mega- | (M) | million | 10^6 |
For example, if you wanted to convert millimeters to meters, you would divide the number of millimeters by 1000, because one meter is equal to 1000 millimeters. Similarly, if you wanted to convert kilometers to meters, you would multiply the number of kilometers by 1000, because one kilometer is equal to 1000 meters.Converting from one unit to another is very easy in the metric system, as you can simply move the decimal point to the right or left to convert between units. For example, to convert from meters to kilometers, you would move the decimal point three places to the right. To convert from kilograms to grams, you would move the decimal point three places to the left.
The metric system is present throughout your everyday life. The metric system is used at home improvement stores, tools, the medical field and even in your foods from the grocery store.