Vocabulary:
Science- an organized way of gathering and analyzing evidence about the natural world
Scientific Methodology- involves observing and asking questions, making inferences and forming hypothesis, conducting controlled experiments, collecting and analyzing data, and drawing conclusions.
Observation- the act of noticing and describing events or process in a careful and orderly way.
Inference- a logical interpretation based on what scientists already know.
Hypothesis- a scientific explanation for a set of observations that can be tested in ways that can support or reject it.
Controlled experiment- in an experiment, only one variable should be changed. the rest of the variables should remain untouched, or controlled.
Independent variable- a variable that’s deliberately changed
Dependant variable- the variable that is observed and that changes in response to the independent variable.
Control group- exposed to the same conditions as the experimental group except for one independent variable.
Data- Information
What science is and is not
Facts Change. Science is not set in stone. Scientific ideas are open to testing, discussion, and revision.
Science as a way of knowing
Science is a way of thinking. It is a process, not a thing. Science deals only with the natural world. (no supernatural phenomena.)
Scientists propose explanation based on evidence, not belief.
The goals of science
From a scientific perspective, all objects in the universe are governed by universal natural laws.
Science, change, and uncertainty
Most of nature is a mystery because science never stands still. What was discovered today could be changed tomorrow.
Observing and asking questions
“think something nobody has thought yet, while looking at something everybody sees.” with a little imagination, you yourself could discover something new if you thought of it in a new way.
Designing controlled experiments
Testing a scientific hypothesis often involves designing experiments that keep track of things that can change, or variables.
Collecting and analyzing data
Ÿ Quantitive data are numbers obtained by counting and measuring
Ÿ Qualitive data are descriptions that involve characteristics that cannot be counted
When an experiment isn’t possible
Sometimes, you cant have an experiment. An example of a case like that is given in the book, where it says that you need humans to control an experiment. But say you want to see if cancer is created in the human body when the man is exposed to a certain element. That would be a deadly experiment to conduct. Instead, they search for people who have already been exposed to the element. For controls, they study people who have not been exposed to the element. However they use people who don’t have any medical conditions or a genetic problem.
Or another case, such as field observation, or observing an animal. First the researchers would need to study the behavior of animals from a certain species and than write a hypothesis, than they test.
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