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Book Chapter
Students often assume that tests are fair and their experiments are well controlled. This chapter introduces students to the idea of repeatability—t...
Book Chapter
This chapter is about being accurate and being sure. It is about errors—recognizing them, taking account of them, and eliminating them. The chapter ...
Book Chapter
This chapter is about graphing data. The three lessons are designed to develop the students' awareness of the value and techniques of graphing by prov...
Book Chapter
The Numbers Game: Are Some Measures Better Than Others?
In this chapter, readers see how Marie and Monique want to make the strongest magnet possible and had various ideas for how to do so. They wonder whet...
Book Chapter
As you work on a project, students will meet all sorts of problems: problems with measuring, designing apparatus, devising good investigations, graphi...
Book Chapter
This chapter focuses on the products of scientific inquiry. It relates the product of inquiry to the process of inquiry and presents scientific activi...
Book Chapter
This chapter is about sharing and communicating scientific findings. It is designed to help students who have done a project to display it, write it u...
Book Chapter
The first lesson in this chapter focuses on judging displays, the second on judging written reports, and the third on judging oral presentations. The ...
Book Chapter
This chapter is designed to help students generate ideas for an investigation of their own and serves as a launching pad for science fair and science ...
Book Chapter
An Overview of the Nature of Scientific Inquiry: Beginner Scientists and Experienced Scientists
This chapter presents a project on puddles and understanding more about evaporation and the way nature behaves. Over the years, scientists have learne...
Book Chapter
Science Without Numbers: Wondering Why
The chapter suggests making a paper helicopter and find out as much as you can about it in 30 minutes. Record the findings and then begin working in t...
Book Chapter
The Numbers Game: Learning to Play the Numbers Game
This chapter focuses on how our senses can deceive us by investigating the question, “Which line is longer?” Everyone was deceived! Scientists inv...
Book Chapter
Variables and Their Controls: Being Fair
To create a fair test, all the conditions (variables) must be kept the same (constant) except for the variable being investigated. Scientists call thi...
Book Chapter
Experiment Design: Getting Experiments to Work: Repeatability
This chapter features five investigations from Starting Points presented in Chapter 1 and gives a scenario of “the test of a fair test” for each. ...
Book Chapter
Sources of Error: Taking the Average
This chapter focuses on sources of error and taking the average. If an investigation is done five times with different readings each time, what could...