Carrying Out an Investigation in Science

Investigation Steps

1. Asking a question (testable)

2. Planning and carry out a fair test (testing)

3. Gather evidence and recording findings

4. Communicating your findings (Conclusion)

Asking a Question

Gather ideas

What could we investigate?

What could we measure or observe?

Ask yourself what are you trying to find out

You need a question to investigate....

How? What? When?

Which type of sugar dissolves fastest in water?

Planning a fair test• Our question: Which type of sugar dissolves fastest in water?

• Factor that we will change (the independient variable)

• Type of sugar

• Factor that we will measure (the dependent variable)

• Time (how long does the sugar take to dissolve)

• Factors that we will keep the same to make the test fair:

• The volume of water, the temperature of the water, the amount of sugar

• How we will record our results:

• Measuring the time each type of sugar need to disolve (or thenumber of stirs you need to dissolve the sugar).

• What we will need to carry out our test:

• The following equipment

Equipment• Different kinds of sugar

• Water

• Beaker

• Stirring spoon

• Stop watch

• Measuring cylinder

• Scale

• Watch glass

Experiment 1 (Guidelines)

1. Question

2. Science equipment

3. Method

4. Results

5. Conlusions

Method

(perform all steps 2x , once for each type of sugar)

• Mesure 100ml of water with measuring cylinder.

• Put 100ml of water into a beaker

• Measure 5g of sugar with a scale

• Add the sugar to the water.

• Measure the time each type of sugar needs to disolve (or the number of stirs you need to dissolvethe sugar).

Cross sectionsA cross section is a diagram which shows what an object would

look like if you cut through it.

Cross sections

Flow diagramsA way of showing the ordered steps in a process

Labelling diagrams• All scientific diagrams must have a heading or caption

• The parts of the diagram must also be clearly and correctly labelled.

What are the mistakes in this pupil’s labelled drawing?

Label this diagram correctly

Gathering Evidence

Carry out the experiment and note carefully what happens.

Different ways of gathering evidence in science

• Evidences from observation.

• Evidences form research

• Evidence from measuring

Comunicating your findings

There are many different ways of communicatingyour findings in science investigation:• Diagrams• Graphs• Many other methods

Choosing the correct type of graphs

When you collect evidence, it is sometimes useful to display it on a graph to show the results.

Graphs

Graphs

Using a pie graphWhich kind of movie do people like best?

Comedy Action Romance Drama SciFi TOTAL

4 5 6 1 4 20

First, put your data into a table (like above), then add up all the values to get a total:

Degrees My Results

Sweet Results

Strawberry Cream 5

Orange Cream 3

Purple Hazelnut 6

Green Triangle 2

Other 2

TOTAL

Strawberry

creamOrange cream

Purple hazelnut

Green triangle

Degrees

100°

60°

120°

40°

40°

360°

X 20

X 20

20°

18

“What is your favourite Quality Street?”

Draw a pie chart:

Height (m)Frequenc

y

1.5 ≤ h < 1.6 5

1.6 ≤ h 1.7 11

1.7 ≤ h < 1.8 7

1.8 ≤ h < 1.9 1

How tall are people in 9E3?

OMG where did all the money go?!!

She spent it

all!

Did not. I’ll show you on a pie Dad.

Then you’ll believe me.

Yellow is my saxophone

lessons

Blue is Mum’s hairdye

Pink is for your doughnuts

How would you spend an

allowance of £20 per month? Draw a pie to

show me.

Convert data to degrees

• Now you need to figure out how many degrees for each "pie slice" (correctly called a sector).

Calculating percentages

Comedy Action Romance Drama SciFi TOTAL

4 5 6 1 4 20

4/20 =20% 5/20 =25% 6/20 =30% 1/20 = 5% 4/20 =20% 100%

Divide each value by the total and multiply by 100 to get a percent:

4 out of 20 people prefer Comedy, so they represent 20% of the total number of people.

Which type of graph is the best for each investigation?

Exercise 3. Pag 15

• They planted these plants giving them different amount of water,

and after a while, they measured the hieghts of the plants.

• Depending on the amount of water the plands grow more or less.

The taller the plant, the more wáter has been used.

• No, because what you change is not a factor represented by

numbers, it´s the type of grass, so what you have is different

categories. =Bar graph

Surveys and Interviews in class

• Which school did your classmates go to?

• Which colour of car ist most common?

• Which type of ear lobe is most common in our class? (loose or joined)

Explain the results

• Explain what your results show.

• Decide whether your prediction was correct.

• Make a conclusion about what you have found out and explain it clearly.

• Make a note of things you might change if you were to do the enquiry again.

• Report back to the rest of the class.

SO......How do I carry out an Investigation in Science?

1. Gather ideas

2. Ask yourself what are you trying to find out .

3. Plan what you will change

4. Make a prediction

5. Plan the practical work

6. Carry out the experiment.

6. Record the results

7. Explain the results