1-1 Assessment

Essential Question:What is science and why is it

important to learn about?

1. What does science study?• The natural world.• The purpose of science is to find out and

explain how the natural world works.

2. What does it mean to describe a scientist as skeptical? Why is skepticism considered a valuable quality in a scientist?

• It means scientists always question existing ideas and new hypotheses.

• Skepticism is valuable because scientific understanding is always changing.

3. What is the main difference between qualitative and quantitative observations?

• Quantitative = can be counted or expressed as a number.

• Qualitative = characteristics that can’t be counted or expressed as a number.

Example: color, texture

Example: temperature, weight, # of individuals

4. What is a scientific hypothesis? In what two ways can a hypothesis be tested?

• Educated guess, suggested explanation for a set of observations.

• By performing controlled experiments• By gathering more data, observations.

5. Is a scientific hypothesis accepted if there is no way to demonstrate that the hypothesis is wrong? Explain your answer.• No.• Scientific hypotheses have to be proposed in a way

that makes them testable.

6. Suppose a community proposes a law to require the wearing of seatbelts in all moving vehicles. How could scientific research have an impact on the decision?• Do experiments to see if wearing seatbelts reduces

injuries or deaths.• Count how many people were hurt or killed in car

accidents. Find out how many were wearing seatbelts.

Alt. Assessment. List the 5 main senses and give an example of an observation you have made using each sense. Add at least one inference you could make based on each observation.

Observation inference

Vision

Hearing

Smell

Taste

touch

light on window Sun is out

Table feels hard

Soda tastes sweet

Smell smoke

Blowing sound

Made of wood

Has sugar in it

Something is burning

Fan is on

Let’s take a closer look at how science works and why it’s important to learn about….

How does lawn fertilizer affect animal life?

How do earthworms respond to lawn fertilizer?

Question: How do earthworms respond to lawn fertilizer? Hypothesis: If given a choice, earthworms will be attracted to/repelled by/unaffected by fertilizer because ________________

How could we design an experiment to test our hypothesis?

Combination of words and pictures to show how you would do an experiment to test your hypothesis

How do isopods respond to lawn fertilizer?

Question: How do isopods respond to lawn fertilizer? Hypothesis: If given a choice, isopods will be attracted to/repelled by/unaffected by fertilizer because __________________

Procedures: How could we design an experiment to test our hypothesis?

Combination of words and pictures to show how you would do an experiment to test your hypothesis