Scientific Method Assignment

The process of "doing science" takes both logic and creativity. That statement surprises many non-scientists. While objectivity is certainly important to the scientific process (being able to distance yourself enough to get accurate information), so is ingenuity. Many people picture scientists as rigidly logical, one-dimensional beings who spout lots of jargon (okay, we don't help our own image sometimes!). In reality, though, like in business and other fields, being able to "think outside the box" is crucial in science. It's how progress occurs. Consider the scientific method as you read your textbook. All of the information in your book has been obtained by scientists following the scientific method, in a dynamic, creative process that builds on past knowledge while exploring new terrain.

Science is a systematic process in which observation of the natural world leads to questions, and possible answers to such questions are proposed and tested. This process of questioning and investigation is known as the scientific method. The steps in the scientific method are as follows:

Good observations are unbiased and are reproducible. Scientists, however, may have several different "working hypotheses" to explain one set of observations and as new data are collected, hypotheses often change. This is absolutely alright -- it's how science advances. "Good data are immortal" (i.e., once an accurate observation is made, it should never be dismissed); hypotheses involve interpretation and can change as new data are introduced. Sometimes what's needed is to puzzle over carefully collected data and "unlearn" inaccurate or incorrect assumptions and interpretations.

Good hypotheses aren't necessarily "the right answer", and that's totally fine. There can be multiple, equally reasonable explanations for a given set of data. Good initial hypotheses lead to new-and-improved hypotheses, perhaps more focussed or more comprehensive. A hypothesis should generate a set of predictions whereby we can formulate tests of the hypothesis.

Many times the media writers (in contrast to scientific writers) do not make this distinction -- For better readability, sentences in articles for the "lay public" often contain both observations and interpretations, and it's up to you to figure out what are the data and what are the interpretations. Therefore, it is important for you to be able to distinguish between observations and interpretations. In this assignment, you'll do this by making observations and interpretations of your environment.

Does science ever arrive at the undisputed “truth”? Any scientist who makes such a dubious claim should be considered misguided. Absolute truth is not a reachable goal in science, because we can never be sure that we have acquired and fully examined all available data. And that is fine! No rational scientist will ever claim that he or she has enough data and needs no more. It is even possible that well-accepted theories and laws may be superseded by new observations that are not yet available. This should not, however, be looked upon as a weakness of science. Instead, it is a great validation of the strength of the scientific method. Many of the greatest scientific advancements in history have been the result of new observations that caused a previously accepted hypothesis to be rejected.

Formulating Good Questions -- Go Outside!

Perhaps the hardest task for any scientist is to ask a good question. As Sean Chamberlin points out in "The Remarkable Ocean World": "A properly posed scientific question gets to the root of the matter; the mere creation of it suggests possibilities we might never have considered; the asking of it illuminates gaps in our knowledge and exposes those parts of a problem that are most critical."

Now it's time to put the concepts above into practice, and explore first-hand the art of scientific thinking. You can do this activity in the mountains, at the beach, in a park, in your back yard... pretty much anywhere outside "in nature". As this is a science class, the questions must be about scientific subjects/observations.

• Go outside. Look around you. Make careful observations. What do you see? What kinds of phenomena define the landscape? the coast? the mountains? What kinds of organisms or materials travel along or within the rivers or beach? What kinds of things can't you see that you might be curious about? Don't limit yourself or your thinking. Stretch your mind. Include the land, the sky, the sea. Observe the big picture as well as the tiny picture.

• Write your observations in the form of questions. Write at least twenty (20) questions. The reason twenty is important is because it forces you to observe and think! At about 12 or 13 questions, you run out of the obvious questions and then you really have to start looking around you. Try this little test on your questions: Ask yourself if the question would be easy to answer through experiment or further observation. If not, try to think of a way to ask the question that might make it easier to answer. [Example: Instead of asking “Why does the ocean look blue?”, you might phrase your question “Does the fact  that the ocean appears blue have anything to do with the sky being blue?”]

• Pick one of your questions above, and try to form several possible answers (that is, several proper scientific hypotheses). Remember that a proper hypothesis must be testable. [Example (continued from above): “Hypothesis: The ocean appears blue because the light reflected off of it to our eyes comes from the blue sky.”  (By the way, this hypothesis is not correct, but that’s okay!)]

• For each of your hypotheses above, list some predictions that might be true if the hypothesis is true. What do you expect to see based on the hypothesis? [Example (continued from above): “On a cloudy day, the ocean will not appear blue.”]

Post your questions, hypotheses, and predictions. Be sure to number your questions! Start with a brief introductory paragraph about your specific location, type of environment, date and time, and weather conditions from which your questions originated. End with a summary paragraph about what you learned from this exercise -- Did it cause you to look at the natural world around you a little differently, and if so, then how? Post all of this information in one combined post on the Scientific Method Assignment discussion board, before midnight of the due date. Include your name in your post's subject line.

Read -- and feel free to respond to -- your classmates' posts! Some of the discussions generated may provide good ideas for test questions.

Always check that each post went where you intended it to go (to the right discussion board). Re-post correctly if necessary.