Scientific Investigations: Recording and Concluding
Scientific Investigations: Recording and Concluding
At the end of this lesson, you are expected to:
Understand the importance of drawing conclusions in a scientific investigation.
Relate your experimental results back to the original aim or hypothesis.
Determine whether your results support or refute your initial ideas.
Identify new questions that may arise from your findings.
Communicate your conclusions clearly and concisely.
Imagine you've been given a sealed box. You can't open it, but you can shake it, tilt it, and listen to it. You also have a few clues written on a card: "It's light," "It rattles," and "It feels soft when you poke it through a small hole."
Based on these clues, what do you think is inside the box? Write down your best guess and why you think so.
Now, imagine you were told that the box contained a small stuffed toy. Do your clues and your guess match what you were told? If your guess was "a bunch of marbles," does that match the clue "It feels soft"? Probably not! This is a bit like what scientists do – they make a guess (a hypothesis), do an experiment, and then see if their guess was right based on what they observed.
Welcome, young scientists! You've done an amazing job planning your investigations, carefully gathering your materials, following the steps, and recording your results. You've measured, observed, and maybe even drawn some cool diagrams. But what does it all mean? That's where drawing conclusions comes in!
Drawing a conclusion is like being a detective at the end of a case. You've collected all the clues (your data), and now you need to figure out what story those clues tell. Does the story match what you expected, or is it a surprise?
1. What is a Conclusion?
In science, a conclusion is a summary of what you found out from your experiment. It's your answer to the question you started with. It's also where you explain whether your initial guess, called a hypothesis, was supported by your results.
Hypothesis: This is your educated guess or prediction before you start your experiment. It's what you think will happen. For example, if you're investigating if plants grow taller with more sunlight, your hypothesis might be: "If a plant receives more sunlight, then it will grow taller."
Results: These are the facts you collected during your experiment. This could be measurements, observations, or data from tables and graphs.
Conclusion: This is where you connect your results to your hypothesis. You state what you learned and whether your hypothesis was correct.
2. Connecting Results to Your Hypothesis
Let's go back to our plant experiment. Suppose you set up two plants:
Plant A: Gets 8 hours of sunlight per day.
Plant B: Gets 2 hours of sunlight per day.
After two weeks, you measure their height:
Plant A is 15 cm tall.
Plant B is 8 cm tall.
Now, how do you draw a conclusion?
Restate your hypothesis: "My hypothesis was that if a plant receives more sunlight, then it will grow taller."
Summarize your results: "My results showed that Plant A, which received 8 hours of sunlight, grew to 15 cm, while Plant B, which received only 2 hours of sunlight, grew to 8 cm."
State whether your hypothesis was supported or not: "Therefore, my results support my hypothesis because the plant with more sunlight grew taller."
What if the results were different?
Imagine Plant A (8 hours sunlight) grew to 10 cm, and Plant B (2 hours sunlight) grew to 12 cm.
Restate your hypothesis: "My hypothesis was that if a plant receives more sunlight, then it will grow taller."
Summarize your results: "My results showed that Plant A, which received 8 hours of sunlight, grew to 10 cm, while Plant B, which received only 2 hours of sunlight, grew to 12 cm."
State whether your hypothesis was supported or not: "Therefore, my results do not support my hypothesis. The plant with less sunlight grew taller in this experiment."
It's okay if your hypothesis isn't supported! Science is all about discovering what actually happens, not just proving what you thought would happen. Sometimes, not supporting your hypothesis leads to even more interesting discoveries.
3. Explaining Your Results
A good conclusion doesn't just say "yes" or "no" to the hypothesis. It also explains why you think you got those results, using what you've learned about science.
Let's think about the particle model we learned about. If you did an experiment about how ice melts, your results might show that ice turns into water when heated.
Hypothesis: "If ice is heated, it will turn into liquid water."
Results: "When I placed ice cubes in a beaker and heated the beaker gently, the ice cubes melted and became liquid water."
Conclusion: "My results support my hypothesis. When heat was added to the ice (solid water), the particles gained energy and moved faster, breaking free from their fixed positions to become liquid water. This shows that adding heat causes a change of state from solid to liquid."
See how the conclusion explains why it happened using the particle model?
4. What If Something Went Wrong? (Addressing Errors)
Sometimes, experiments don't go perfectly. Maybe your measurements weren't as accurate as they could be, or perhaps an accident happened. In your conclusion, you can mention any problems you encountered and how they might have affected your results.
Example: Let's say you were measuring how much sugar dissolves in water at different temperatures. You noticed that one of your measurements seemed unusually high.
Conclusion: "My results support the idea that warmer water dissolves more sugar. However, one measurement for the 40°C water seemed unusually high. This might have been due to an inaccurate measurement of the water temperature or an error in counting the sugar crystals. If I were to repeat this experiment, I would be extra careful to ensure the thermometer is calibrated correctly and to use a more precise way to measure the sugar."
Mentioning potential errors shows that you are thinking critically about your experiment and how to improve it next time.
5. What New Questions Do You Have?
Science is a continuous journey of discovery. Often, an experiment leads to more questions than answers! This is a good thing! It means you're thinking like a real scientist.
Example: After our plant experiment, you might ask:
"Does the type of sunlight (like morning sun vs. afternoon sun) matter?"
"What happens if the plant gets too much sunlight?"
"Does the amount of water affect how tall the plant grows, even with lots of sun?"
In your conclusion, you can suggest these new questions for future investigations.
6. Writing Your Conclusion: A Step-by-Step Guide
Here’s a simple way to structure your conclusion:
Step 1: Restate the Aim/Problem: Briefly remind yourself and others what question you were trying to answer.
Example: "The aim of this investigation was to determine if temperature affects how fast sugar dissolves in water."
Step 2: Summarize Key Results: Briefly mention the most important findings from your data. Use numbers if they help explain your point.
Example: "The results showed that sugar dissolved in 30 seconds in hot water, but it took 2 minutes in cold water."
Step 3: State Whether Your Hypothesis Was Supported: Clearly say if your results matched your prediction.
Example: "This supports my hypothesis that sugar dissolves faster in hot water."
Step 4: Explain Your Results (Using Science Concepts): Use what you've learned (like the particle model, solubility rules, etc.) to explain why you think you got these results.
Example: "This is because the water particles in hot water have more energy and move faster, bumping into the sugar crystals more often and breaking them apart quicker."
Step 5: Mention Any Errors or Limitations: Briefly discuss any problems that might have affected your results.
Example: "There might have been slight variations in the exact temperature of the 'hot' and 'cold' water."
Step 6: Suggest Further Questions or Investigations: What else could you explore based on your findings?
Example: "Further investigations could explore if the size of the sugar crystals affects dissolving time, or how salt dissolves compared to sugar."
Real-World Example: Making Lemonade
Imagine you're making lemonade. Your goal is to make it taste just right – not too sour, not too sweet.
Aim/Problem: How much sugar do I need to add to make the lemonade taste good?
Hypothesis: "If I add 4 tablespoons of sugar to 1 liter of lemon juice and water, the lemonade will taste perfectly sweet."
Experiment: You mix 1 liter of lemon juice and water, add 4 tablespoons of sugar, stir, and taste.
Results: You taste it. It's a little too sour. You decide to add 2 more tablespoons of sugar. You stir and taste again. Now it's just right!
Conclusion:
"The aim was to find the right amount of sugar for the lemonade."
"My results showed that 4 tablespoons of sugar made the lemonade too sour, but adding a total of 6 tablespoons made it taste just right."
"This means my hypothesis that 4 tablespoons would be enough was not supported."
"The extra sugar dissolved in the water, making the solution sweeter because there were more sugar particles spread throughout the liquid."
"I need to be careful to measure the lemon juice accurately next time."
"I wonder if adding more lemon juice would require even more sugar to make it taste sweet?"
Another Real-World Example: Dissolving Salt in Water
Let's say you're helping your mom in the kitchen and she asks you to dissolve salt in water for cooking.
Aim/Problem: How can I make the salt dissolve faster?
Hypothesis: "If I stir the water, the salt will dissolve faster than if I don't stir it."
Experiment: You get two glasses of water. In one, you add salt and stir it. In the other, you add the same amount of salt and let it sit without stirring.
Results: You observe that the salt in the stirred glass disappears much quicker than the salt in the unstirred glass.
Conclusion:
"The aim was to see if stirring helps salt dissolve faster."
"The results showed that the salt dissolved much faster when the water was stirred."
"This supports my hypothesis."
"Stirring moves the water around, bringing fresh solvent (water) into contact with the salt (solute) and carrying away the dissolved salt particles, allowing more salt to dissolve more quickly."
"I need to make sure I used the same amount of salt and water in both glasses."
"Does heating the water make the salt dissolve even faster, even if I don't stir?"
Remember, drawing a conclusion is your chance to show what you've learned from your scientific adventure! It's where you make sense of all the hard work you put into your investigation.
Guided Practice: Analyzing a Simple Experiment
Let's practice drawing a conclusion together. Read the following scenario and then answer the questions.
Scenario: Maria wanted to find out if a paperclip would float or sink in different liquids. She hypothesized: "If I place a paperclip in oil, it will float, but if I place it in water, it will sink."
She carefully placed a paperclip into a small cup of vegetable oil. It floated! Then, she took another paperclip and placed it into a small cup of water. It sank.
Questions:
What was Maria's hypothesis?
What were Maria's results?
Did Maria's results support her hypothesis? Explain why or why not.
Based on the particle model, why might a paperclip sink in water but float in oil? (Hint: Think about how the particles of oil and water are arranged and how much "space" there is between them, and how the paperclip fits into that.)
What is one new question Maria could investigate based on her results?
(Think about your answers before checking the example answers below!)
Example Answers:
Maria's hypothesis was: "If I place a paperclip in oil, it will float, but if I place it in water, it will sink."
Maria's results were: The paperclip floated in oil and sank in water.
Yes, Maria's results supported her hypothesis because what happened matched her prediction exactly.
(This requires a bit of thinking!) Oil is less dense than water. This means that for the same amount of space (volume), oil has fewer particles packed into it compared to water. The paperclip is denser than oil, so the oil pushes up on it enough to make it float. However, the paperclip is much denser than water, so the water's upward push (buoyancy) isn't strong enough to make it float.
Possible new questions: "Will a paperclip float in other liquids like rubbing alcohol or milk?" or "Will a heavier object like a coin float in oil?"
Interactive Activity: "Conclusion Creator"
Imagine you just finished an experiment about how different types of paper absorb water. You tested paper towels, newspaper, and tissue paper.
Your Hypothesis: "Paper towels will absorb the most water because they feel thicker."
Your (Made-Up) Results:
Paper Towel: Absorbed 50 ml of water.
Newspaper: Absorbed 20 ml of water.
Tissue Paper: Absorbed 35 ml of water.
Now, use the steps we learned to write a conclusion for this experiment. Fill in the blanks below:
Conclusion:
The aim of this investigation was to _____________________________________________________.
My results showed that _____________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________.
This ___________ (supports/does not support) my hypothesis that _________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________.
I think this happened because _________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________. (Think about the structure of the paper and how it might trap water.)
One possible error could have been ____________________________________________________.
A new question I have is ____________________________________________________________.
Independent Practice: Your Turn to Conclude!
Think back to an experiment you did earlier in this unit (or imagine one). Maybe it was about:
How temperature affects how fast a sugar cube dissolves.
How different amounts of salt affect the boiling point of water.
How plants grow with different amounts of light.
Choose one experiment and write a full conclusion for it, following the 6-step structure we discussed. Make sure to include your aim, a summary of results, whether your hypothesis was supported, an explanation using science concepts, any possible errors, and a new question.
Drawing conclusions isn't just for science class! We do it all the time.
Cooking: If your cake doesn't rise, you look at your results (flat cake) and try to figure out why. Did you forget the baking powder? Was the oven temperature wrong? You're drawing a conclusion about what went wrong.
Sports: If your basketball team keeps losing, you analyze the results (losses) and try to conclude why. Is the team not practicing enough? Is the strategy not working?
Health: If you feel tired all the time, you might conclude that you're not getting enough sleep or not eating healthy foods.
Scientists are like super-detectives. They use experiments as their clues and data as their evidence to figure out how the world works. Your ability to draw conclusions helps you understand the world around you better, solve problems, and make informed decisions every single day!
A conclusion summarizes what you learned from an experiment.
It connects your results back to your original hypothesis.
You state whether your hypothesis was supported or not.
It's important to explain why you got your results using scientific ideas.
You can mention any errors and suggest new questions for future experiments.
Drawing conclusions is a key skill for understanding the world, just like a detective solving a case.
Now it's your turn! Choose one of the following:
Think of a simple "experiment" you do at home. For example, figuring out the best way to stack blocks so they don't fall, or finding out which brand of tissue absorbs the most water. Write down the aim, your hypothesis, what you observed (results), and then draw a conclusion using the 6 steps.
Look at a graph or chart from a science book or website. What conclusion can you draw from the information presented in the graph? Write it down.
Imagine you did an experiment on solubility. Your hypothesis was: "Adding heat will make more salt dissolve in water." Your results showed that at 20°C, 36g of salt dissolved in 100ml of water, and at 80°C, 39g of salt dissolved in 100ml of water. Write a conclusion for this experiment.
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