Designing Science Experiments

Science Experiments: After you have chosen a topic for your project and researched it, the next step is designing the actual experiment. The experiment you design must follow the scientific method and effectively test your hypothesis.

Designing Science Experiments

When designing your experiment you want to make sure you follow the scientific method. The scientific method involves the following steps:

• Observation - observe something that interests you
• Question - formulate a question about what you have observed
• Hypothesis - prediction or educated guess on what you expect will happen
• Procedure/Materials - develop an experimental procedure to test your hypothesis and gather all materials needed to perform the experiment
• Perform Experiment/Record Data - do the experiment and record all data
• Results - summarize the results of the science experiment
• Conclusion - draw conclusions about your question and hypothesis based on your results

Observation and Question: The first two steps you have already done by making observations and coming up with a topic and specific question for your science fair project. The topic and question tell what it is that you are trying to discover or accomplish in your project. Once you have your question, you must decide how you can best answer it. Will you need to do an experiment or field work? If you need to observe things as they are in nature, you will need to do field work. If you need to observe things in a controlled environment, you will need to design an experiment.

Hypothesis: The next component in designing your experiment is the hypothesis. What is a hypothesis? This is a prediction or educated guess on what you expect will happen. You must state your hypothesis in a way that it can be tested.

Procedure/Materials: State very clearly and in great detail how you plan to conduct your experiment. Write everything down in step-by-step fashion. Be sure to identify the independent variables (things that change in the experiment) and controlled variables (things that are unchanged) in your science experiment.

You should also make sure to list and gather all needed materials.

Perform Experiment/Record Data: Next, you should perform your experiment. To make sure you are getting accurate results, repeat your experiment several times and/or use several test subjects. Be sure to record your data. The records you keep should be clear and concise.

Results: This is where you summarize the results of the science experiment. Tell what happened in your experiment and explain your observations and data. It is also a good idea to graph your data.

Conclusion: Now it is time to analyze your experiment and draw conclusions. Tell what you learned from your science experiment. Did your experiment answer your question? Is your hypothesis correct? If not, give an alternative answer, make changes to your procedure, and repeat the process. Tell what new questions could be answered as related to your science experiment.

Science Experiments Resources

There are several science project books that can help you in designing your experiment. The best ones outline for you, in step-by-step fashion, how to perform the experiments following the scientific method. Science Fair Projects Made Easy is a wonderful resource that does just that and can be downloaded electronically. A good online source for basic information on science experiments is Designing Experiments Using the Scientific Method. For additional information on science experiments visit Science Projects for Kids and Science Fair Project Ideas.

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