The Scientific Method
When you are doing your project you need to keep the Scientific Method in your mind. But what is the Scientific Method? Well here are some videos and posters to tell you all you need to know. Some projects may not need to fully follow this method and this is fine. You may just want to show something amazing at the fair. But remember to think like a scientist.
What is the Scientific Method?
The scientific method is defined as a method of research in which a problem is identified, relevant data is gathered, a hypothesis is formulated from this data, and the hypothesis is empirically tested.
But what does all that mean?
In kid's terms, the Scientific Method is a way for scientists to study things.
What you are studying doesn’t really matter. Using this method can be applied across all kinds of studies.
The first thing you need to do is to observe. The best questions come from how we observe the world around us. Have you ever looked at something around your house or community and wondered something about it. Maybe some way of making it better. You might ask a question like “what if I ….?”
This leads to the next stage in the Scientific Method, The Question. After all you need to come up with a question so you can find an answer.
Next you need to observe and gather information in order to come up with a guess (called a hypothesis) or a number of guesses to the answer.
Now you need to run experiments to see if your guess is right. As you run experiments you can change your guess, or hypothesis, to fit your results.
Remember that the key to a good experiment is to only change one thing, or variable, at a time. This way you can check your results and know what you changed that changed the answer. For example imagine you were running an experiment to see how you can make the perfect boiled egg. In each experiment you will change the amount ion time the egg is boiled for but you would keep the egg and the amount of water (and it’s temperature) constant. After all you would not get a fair result if you changed more than one thing each time.
Finally, after completing all your tests, you present your final answer.
By using this process, other scientists can run the same tests as you to double check your results and perhaps make more tests to answer your initial question.
Scientific Method Steps
So here is what you need to do.
The scientific method is defined as a method of research in which a problem is identified, relevant data is gathered, a hypothesis is formulated from this data, and the hypothesis is empirically tested.
But what does all that mean?
In kid's terms, the Scientific Method is a way for scientists to study things.
What you are studying doesn’t really matter. Using this method can be applied across all kinds of studies.
The first thing you need to do is to observe. The best questions come from how we observe the world around us. Have you ever looked at something around your house or community and wondered something about it. Maybe some way of making it better. You might ask a question like “what if I ….?”
This leads to the next stage in the Scientific Method, The Question. After all you need to come up with a question so you can find an answer.
Next you need to observe and gather information in order to come up with a guess (called a hypothesis) or a number of guesses to the answer.
Now you need to run experiments to see if your guess is right. As you run experiments you can change your guess, or hypothesis, to fit your results.
Remember that the key to a good experiment is to only change one thing, or variable, at a time. This way you can check your results and know what you changed that changed the answer. For example imagine you were running an experiment to see how you can make the perfect boiled egg. In each experiment you will change the amount ion time the egg is boiled for but you would keep the egg and the amount of water (and it’s temperature) constant. After all you would not get a fair result if you changed more than one thing each time.
Finally, after completing all your tests, you present your final answer.
By using this process, other scientists can run the same tests as you to double check your results and perhaps make more tests to answer your initial question.
Scientific Method Steps
So here is what you need to do.
- Have a look around you and find something you are curious about.
- Ask a question
- Gather information and observe (research)
- Make a hypothesis (guess the answer)
- Experiment and test your hypothesis
- Analyse your test results
- Present a conclusion
And in case you'd prefer to learn the Scientific Method in the form of a dance you can check out the video below.