Scientific Reasoning
Terms
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- What is science?
- Science is a way of learning about the natural world and the knowledge gained through that process.
- Describe scientific inquiry.
- Diverse ways in which scientists explore problems and seek to answer questions about the natural world.
- Observation
- Using one or more of you five senses to gather information about the world.
- Inference
- Evaluation or interpretation based on your observation and prior knowledge
- Hypothesis
- A possible explanation for a set of observations or answer to a scientific question using if and then.
- Variable
- Any factor that can change in an experiment.
- Independent Variable - IV
- The factor in an experiment that you change or manipulate.
- Dependent Variable - DV
- Factor that changes as a result of the independent variable. This is the factor that is measured or observed to obtain your results.
- Comparing
- Identifying similarities or common characteristics
- Contrasting
- Identifying differences
- Data
- Facts, figures, and other evidence gathered through observations
- Scientific Theory
- Well-tested scientific concept that explains a wide range of observations.
- Quantitive Data
- Data that is found in numbers
- Qualitative Data
- When only words are used to describe an observation. Example: color, tecture, or odor
- Control
- Part of the experiment that stays the same while other parts change. Used to be comparison or norm.
- Model
- Shows things that are too large or too small for normal viewing.
- Conclusion
- Closing paragraph that summarizes your observations and inferences.
- Metrics
- Unit of measurement used in science