SCIENTIFIC METHOD!!

 

 

 

Part 1: Evaluate an Experiment:

Scenario: Katherine wants to investigare if the time of day a plant is watered affects the growth of the plant. She hypothesizes that a plant watered in the morning will grow faster than a plant watered at other times of the day.

1. Independent variable: Time of the day that the plants are watered. i.e. morning, mid-morning, noon, afternoon, night.

2. Dependent variable: How much the plant grows in each different time-frame.

 

Part 2: Designing an Experiment:

Katie understood how plants grew through the process of photosynthesis. She overheard, one day on T.V. how plants respond differently to different genres of music. Katie wondered if this was a plausible concept. She then decided that she would design, carry out, and document an experiment based on the question she formed that day: Do certain genres of music really affect the growth of her favorite plant, the mum?

Solutions to the question above include: Yes, different genres of music affect plant growth of the mum. OR No, different genres of music do not affect the plant growth.

 

Research:

To start this experiment, Katie must do some research first. She checked online and searched for "relationship between music and plant growth". She found a gardening website that suggested that different species of plants do respond differently to different genres of music.
http://www.smilinggardener.com/plants/music-and-plants
Katie then researched "relationship between music and mums". She couldn't find any sources describing the particular experiment and decided that this is something that she could discover on her own.

Katie figured that she needed to know the best conditions to grow her mums so that her experiment produce the most accurate response. 

She found this website about the best conditions to grow her mums: http://www.bhg.com/gardening/flowers/perennials/all-about-mums/

Hypothesis:
Possible Hypothesis #1: Music will affect the growth of the mum.
Possible Hypothesis #2: Music will have no effect on the growth of the mum.
Katie went with Possible Hyothesis #1.

Experiment:
Katie put each mum in a different area. One of the mums was located in an area without music; this was the controlled variable. She placed a mum for every music genre in different areas. This independent variable would ensure that all genres would be covered so that even if certain genres of music had no effect on the mums, any genres that have any effect would produce it. Katie will now wait and regularly water, fertilize, and expose sunlight to the mums. She will play the music for 24 hours a day for all of the mums except for the controlled. Eventually, a dependent variable will be produced. She will take measurements of the plant growth of the controlled variable, as well as the musical mums.

Analysis:
Possible result #1: Based on the comparison of the musical mums and the controlled mum, she would find that the music had no effect on the mums.
Possible result #2: Based on the comparison of the musical mums and the controlled mum, Katie would find that the music had a variety of effects on the mums.

Conclusion:
If the music affected the mums, then Katie's hypothesis was proven correct. If not, it was proven incorrect. If Katie's hypothesis was proven incorrect, she would pursue the question, "What plant does music affect the most?"

THE END