Scientific Method Unit Reflection

UNIT QUESTION:

How can learning the scientific method help us to communicate ideas more effectively?

From this unit, I have learned the format for writing a hypothesis. This has helped me communicate better in my conclusion. This is because the first paragraph of my conclusion state whether my hypothesis was correct or not. My oral communication has improved because of my presentation. I tried really hard to keep eye contact and interact with my audience so I’m really proud I got a 5 (out of 6) in Criteria A and a 5 (out of 6) in Criteria B in my presentation. I learned how to analyze my data better. In my Great Inventors project I had to analyze my data to find the impacts on society, economy and the environment. In my project I found analyzing easy since I already know the discoveries the inventor I was researching (Francis Crick) made. I also learned how to make a good conclusion:

1^st paragraph: State whether the hypothesis was right or not.

2^nd paragraph: Any problems I encountered/scientific reasoning/observations

3^rd paragraph: How I could do better

When I prepare a lab I now know I should consider:

-Research question: I need to identify what the problem is and what I want to find out

-Hypothesis: I use the ‘if…then…because’ format

-Variables: Independent (what changes), dependent (the result), control (what stays the same)

-Materials

-Method: the steps I take to conduct this experiment

-Also how I’m going to observe my experiment (ex. Table, tally, etc.). This depends on what kind of data I’m collecting; quantitative (involves words) or qualitative (involves numbers).

If I didn’t learn this, I would have trouble communicating my findings because I need to prove I did my experiment correctly and my data is accurate.

I thought this unit was fun because we did lots of experiments. I liked making a poster after learning about the lab safety rules.

But I thought our first experiment was a bit overwhelming. I wasn’t expecting to do something that involves fire until we were more familiar with working in the lab.