THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD
What makes a fair Science Experiment?
Experiments need to be conducted in a controlled environment, for the result to be accepted as fair. This can be very difficult in some cases.
What makes a fair experiment?
(a) The students (scientist) needs to control factors that may change the result. e.g. the temperature may have to be kept constant.
(b) The item being measured needs clearly stated; it could be as simple as the time it takes to run 100 metres. This is called the DEPENDENT VARIABLE.
(c) The item being changed needs to be identified and names. This could be age of the runner or the country of the runner. This is called the INDEPENDENT VARIABLE.
(d) When a graph of the data collected is drawn the DEPENDENT Variable is placed on the vertical axis and the INDEPENDENT Variable is placed on the horizontal axis. An example is given below. (You can either download the graph as a pdf file or move across and view it as an embedded pdf file. )
What makes a fair experiment?
(a) The students (scientist) needs to control factors that may change the result. e.g. the temperature may have to be kept constant.
(b) The item being measured needs clearly stated; it could be as simple as the time it takes to run 100 metres. This is called the DEPENDENT VARIABLE.
(c) The item being changed needs to be identified and names. This could be age of the runner or the country of the runner. This is called the INDEPENDENT VARIABLE.
(d) When a graph of the data collected is drawn the DEPENDENT Variable is placed on the vertical axis and the INDEPENDENT Variable is placed on the horizontal axis. An example is given below. (You can either download the graph as a pdf file or move across and view it as an embedded pdf file. )
variables_graph2.pdf | |
File Size: | 181 kb |
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