Summary
Steps through how to design a scientific trial from the beginning — forming a hypothesis, identifying variables, planning data collection — so that the results will actually answer the original question.
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Teaching resources
Discussion questions
Discussion
- What is a hypothesis? How is it different from a guess?
- Why does a fair trial require changing only one variable?
- What data would you collect, and how, in a trial testing whether fertilizer helps plant growth?
- What happens if your results do not support your hypothesis?
Quick work-a-long
Vocabulary: hypothesis, fair trial, variable, data, prediction, observation.
Try it: Write a full trial design for this question: 'Does the temperature of water affect how fast sugar dissolves?' Include hypothesis, independent variable, dependent variable, two controlled variables, and how you would measure results.