The Steps of Scientific Method
Step 1: Identify the Problem
Step 1: Identify the Problem
- What do you want to know or explain?
- Use observations you have made to write a question that addresses the problem or topic you want to investigate.
- What do you think will happen?
- Predict the answer to your question or the outcome of the experiment.
- How will you test your hypothesis?
- Develop a procedure for a reliable experiment and address safety rules.
- Follow the steps in your procedure to perform your experiment.
- Record data and observations!
- Is the data reliable?
- Does your data and observations from the experiment support your hypothesis?
- This is only done if you found that your data was not reliable.
- Rewrite your procedure to address the flaws in the original experiment.
- Write a conclusion that summarizes the important parts of your experiment and the results.
- Always state whether your hypothesis was correct or not (WHAT), and the evidence from your data that proves it one way or another (WHY).