Question

Create a paragraph or two to address the following prompts.

What are the steps of the scientific method? Describe them.
What are variables? Discuss the different types of variables.
Why is the scientific method significant (important)?

Pllease no handwrittten or pictures - only typed responses.

Answer 1

Q) Scientific method is the enquiry of an observation, it includes a number of steps followed by the scientific investigator to answer specific questions about the natural world. The steps found in a scientific method are, an observation is made, a hypothesis is formulated, and a scientific experiment is conducted to test the hypothesis.

The various steps of a scientific method are ----

1) An observation is made.

2) Few questions are asked, about the observation and information is gathered on it or research is done on it.

3) A hypothesis is formed, which is a tentative or a guess about what is observed to make predictions based on the hypothesis.

4) After the hypothesis a scientific experiment is designed and experiment conducted to test the hypothesis. The experiment should contain a controlled variable or dependent variable and an independent variable.

5) Next stage is the result stage, in this a report is made, having the observations found during the experiment, it includes all the observations and the data obtained during the experiment.

6) The last stage is the concluding part of a scientific method, it includes the analysis of all the results of the experiment and a conclusion is reached whether the hypothesis is correct or not. If the data proves the hypothesis than the original question is answered, if the experiment does not prove the hypothesis than the scientific enquiry continues by formulating a new hypothesis, till a hypothesis is proved correct by scientific experiments.

Q2) what are variables? And types of variables-----

Answer- Variables are the things which keeps changing in an experiment. A variable is any factor, trait, or condition which remain in different amounts or types. Usually an experiment has three kinds of variables, they are Independent, Dependent, and Controlled.

The independent variable is the variable which is changed by the scientist. Example is in an experiment where the effect of temperature on solubility is observed, temperature is the independent variable.

Dependent variable is the variable which is measured or observed, in this experiment solubility is the dependent variable. Dependent variable is dependent on independent variable.

Controlled variable- It is the variable which is taken as the constant variable, it is not changed during the experiment, it helps in comparing the other variables with it. In this experiment the source of water can be taken as controlled variable, as each time the experiment is done, the water is taken from the same source.

Q) Significance of the scientific method?

Answer-The scientific method helps to minimize the influence of bias faced by the experimenter. The bias may be due to personal beliefs, or cultural beliefs etc. Scientific method gives an objective, and a standardized approach to the scientist to conduct an experiment and by this it improves the result. By the use of standardized method in the investigation, scientists feel confident and stick to the facts and stay away from the biases or preconceived ideas.  

Scientific method also helps in understanding science, besides this it is a technique which trains the student how to answer a question logically having a reason. It also trains the brain to logically examine and process all the information obtained.