The scientific method is just a process or steps taken to produce reliable results to answer a specific question
Maybe you think you don't use a scientific method in your life, but I can guarantee that you do. For example,
imagine you wake up on a Saturday, and you couldn't find your cell phone. That's an observation.
Then you do a little research by thinking about the last time you had it
You suspect that it might be in the pocket of your pants from yesterday. That's a hypothesis. And when you check your pants
you're doing an experiment, but science and life don't always go as planned and you find no cell phone in your pants pocket
So the second observation leads you to think again and recall what else you did yesterday
You remember that you put your cell phone in your backpack during school
so you decide it must be there and you go and check and lo there
it is. Life can continue, and you're so happy that you share the results with your best friend and explain
why it took you so long to text them back
Science
These are the steps of the scientific method and at any step you can go back and repeat the process
typically after you conduct an experiment and
Conclude that your results aren't answering the question you go back and try something else and really
truly
Observations and research are going on the entire time
Science is a continually ongoing process now. Let's break down each of these steps into their component parts
All that can be observed with the five senses are included in observations. You use your sense of smell,
sight, taste, touch and hearing to make your observations in science
Research is an important step in science because it may answer other questions you have and help
refine your experiment before you go down a path that leads to nowhere or conduct an experiment that's already been done
Make sure you use reliable sources to learn background information
Scientific journals and online sources that are vetted and trusted are best
Avoid information from blogs and out-of-date textbooks as the information might not be reliable
Once you have your research completed you can form your hypothesis
which is a prediction of what you believe will occur it is often seen as an if-then statement and is very specific
Here's an example
If gummy bears are placed in water for 24 hours then they will swell to over twice their original size
It has an "if" and "then" and uses specific terms that make this experiment repeatable
The experiment itself is made of several parts most experiments collect two types of data qualitative and quantitative
Qualitative data relies on descriptions like soft, yellow, shiny or wet
Quantitative data relies on numbers like 25 centimeters or 2.3 grams
Once you know what types of data you're going to collect you can define the variables in your experiment
There is the independent variable which is the thing you change to see how it affects your dependent variable,
which is the thing you measure
So in the gummy bear example the change in the experiment is that the gummy bears are being placed in water
The dependent variable is the volume of the gummy bear which is measured before and after it's soaked in the water
A valid experiment will have both an experimental group where the independent variable is altered and a control group
which can be used to compare the experimental group to the normal or unaltered version
In the gummy bear experiment the bears placed in water are the
experimental group and the dry gummy bears are the control because that's how gummy bears normally are. So to summarize an
experiment should have an experimental group and a control group
The experimental group will have an independent variable and a dependent variable
The data that is measured and collected can be qualitative, quantitative or both
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