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A scientist has recorded whale sounds. What is he doing if he calculates the average length of each whale sound he recorded?
He is analyzing data.
When making a hypothesis, should you just restate the question?
For example, "Does increasing the heat make seeds germinate faster?"
Written as "Will more heat make germination happen quicker?"
Nope! Don't do this! Use an "if than" statement or a null hypothesis.
Is this a rule of the scientific method?
"Your hypothesis must be testable."
Yes! Your hypothesis MUST be testable.
An experiment that tests only one factor at a time by using a comparison of a control group and an experimental group is?
A controlled experiment
What is qualitative data?
Qualitative data can be observed and recorded. This data type is non-numerical in nature.
In an experiment, the one variable that is changed, manipulated, experimented with, or decided upon by the researcher, is called the
Independent Variable
A middle school student wants to know if microwaving mouse food for a certain amount of time (1 min, 5 min, 10 min) will make mice stronger. What is his independent variable?
The amount of time the mouse food is microwaved.
After deciding to subject bean seeds to different amounts of water (1 ml, 5 ml, 10 ml) a lab technician is tasked with measuring the length of bean roots once a week. What is this experiment's dependent variable?
The length of the bean seed roots.
In science, an educated guess is _.
A hypothesis
A scientist analyzes her data and says, "We gotta start this miserable experiment all over again." What is she doing?
Drawing a conclusion.
When you place one of these in your scientific paper, what are you doing?
Communicating your results.
A scientist who wants to study the affects of fertilizer on plants sets up an experiment. Plant A gets no fertilizer, Plant B gets 5 mg. of fertilizer each day, and Plant C gets 10mg. of fertilizer each day. Which plant is the control group
Plant A is the experimental control because it gets NO fertilizer.
An experimental control is the ABSENCE of what you are testing. You need it for comparison.
In scientific experimentation, what does it mean to replicate or have replication?
You have more than one test subject per treatment (4 sheep) or you repeat the experiment more than once in order to determine how correct the results are.
What is a placebo? When is it used?
A placebo is a dose of "fake" medicine. It is given to the control group in a double blind experiment. Typically, these experiments test therapeutics.
What is the difference between a question and a hypothesis?
A question follows from an interesting observation and the hypothesis is an educated guess or answer to that question.
What is quantitiative data?
Data that has a number associated with it. Such as inches, centimeters, seconds, ect.
