Introduction to the Scientific Method

Why do we take it as fact that gravity exists or that an orange is the color orange. These things are known as facts and have been tested using the Scientific Method. We use facts and observations every day when describing different things, some of these observations have been tested and some have not, but no matter how you look at it some form of the scientific method has been used on everything around us.

Experiment Title:

Scientific Method and Demonstrations Galore

Objective:

The objective of this lab is to use the scientific method, specifically the section on observations and make observations about different demonstrations that we will be doing today to see if you can determine the branch(or branches) of science that are involved in the experiment and also understand the underlying principles of each demonstration. This is an introduction lab so feel free to be a little more free form in your lab notebook write up.

Background:

What does it mean to know something?

Consider something that you have learned in school, namely the answer to the problem 1+1. Most people would quickly and correctly say that the answer is 2, but how do we know that for sure?

Over time, people have developed the notion of quantity (and the absence of quantity), meaning that we have an amount of something. Somewhere the notion of addition was developed, whereby quantities could be added and the combination of quantities could also be named. These rules were also generalized to apply to numbers other than 1. Most mathematical concepts involve definitions (in our example, counting numbers and the operation of addition on counting numbers) and logical proof that show a particular definition to be true or false. Proof that we know addition is inherent in the underlying logic of quantities and operations.

When someone says or writes something and it is not the writer’s opinion, we have to decide how much truth exists. If we understand the topic well and the information matches closely with what we would expect, then we might be able to say it is true. If the information does not match well with what we know, or we do not understand the topic well, we cannot specifically rely on that information without confirming it ourselves or evaluating the process that created the information. As a general rule, the more a piece of information is confirmed by different sources, the more we might believe it to be true. 

When we observe the world around us, knowledge becomes a lot harder to prove. We normally come up with a description of something we observe. Often we want to know if two or more events are related or if events cause other events. We often want to know why a particular event occurred.

The scientific method helps us confirm information we are given and helps us create new knowledge about the world and relationships between observable events. The scientific method consists of several main steps:

1. Determine what we are studying (ex. effect of wing span and plane length on paper airplane flight)
2. Identify what we know today (ex. paper airplanes glide when thrown, different speeds cause them to glide differently, etc.)
3. Identify hypotheses (ex. Default hypothesis [What we know or believe today]: wing span will not have an effect on glide length. Alternative hypothesis [What would be a plausible difference]: Short wingspan will cause the plane to fly further)
4. Collect data: this might be from an experiment or from another type of data collection such as a survey (ex. The plane with a wider wing span flew 7 feet, the plane with a short wingspan also flew 7 feet)  

How does our data update what we know today? (ex. Our data was not conclusive to disprove our default hypothesis)

 

The scientific method helps us talk about what happened, but not necessarily why it happened.
Knowing how to use the scientific method can aid us in many different areas of science. Science has been broken up into many different disciplines and fields of study. The diagram below shows a few selected areas of science. It is our goal in STEM Club to try to do different experiments and introduce different concepts that touch most if not all of these fields of study.

Materials

The materials for this lab are dependent on each demonstation and are not listed here. If you would like to know how to recreate a demonstration please refer to our demonstrations post for the scientific method.

Method

      Prepare Experiment

         Write in your lab notebook the title of this lab

         We will be doing a series of demonstrations and introducing key concepts behind each      

         demonstration, make sure to follow along           

      Run Experiment

         With each demo, write the name of the demo in your notebook

         Write down any observations you have about the demo

         Write down any ideas that you have about what concepts we are trying to teach

     Analyze Data

        At the end of each demo we will give you the key concept we are trying to show with that  

        demonstration, make sure to write it down and know that your concept could be accurate as well

Conclusions

This lab is meant to engage students and their parents in STEM Club and show them a few of the concepts that we will be teaching over the coming months/years etc.

Make it your own

As we want STEM Club to be interactive and teaching students a broad diversity of scientific concepts run your own survey with the parents and child to tailor your STEM Club lesson plan. Each one of our lessons may refer to other lessons and concepts that we have taught but will give information information within each experiment to not have to do a previous one to be able to do that one. From your survey pick and choose the different concepts that your students and their parents are most interested in.

Extension Activities to do at home

Think about the demonstrations that you have seen today and what you want to learn more about. Go online with your parents permission and look up some other amazing demonstrations. Youtube has a lot of videos so you will not have to recreate them at home, otherwise there are many websites devoted to scientific demonstrations for kids where you can learn to do different experiments on your own.