Teaching Science to Students with Strong Beliefs

1. Purpose/Question: The scientific method starts when you ask a question about something that you observe: Who, What, When, Where, Why, or Which?

​

2. Do Background Research: Rather than starting from scratch in putting together a plan for answering your question, use the library and Internet research to help you find thebest way to do things and insure that you do not repeat mistakes from the past.

​

3. Hypothesis: A hypothesis is an educated guess about how things work. It is an attempt to answer your question with an explanation that can be tested. A good hypothesis allows you to then make a prediction:

​

" If        [I do this]     , then          [this]       , will happen."

​

State both your hypothesis and the resulting prediction you will be testing. Predictions must be easy to measure. 

​

4. Experiment: Your experiment tests whether your prediction is accurate and thus your hypothesis is supported or not. It is important for you experiment to be a fair test. You conduct a fair test by making sure that you change only one variable at a time while keeping all other conditions the same. 

​

You should also repeat your experiment several times to make sure that the first results weren't just an accident. 

​

5. Analyze Data: Record your observations and analyze what the data means. Often, you'll create a table or graph of the data collected. 

​

6. Conclusion: Conclude whether to accept or reject your hypothesis. 

​

• Communicate Your Results: Create a final report and/or display board. Professional scientists do almost exactly the same thing by publishing their final report in a scientific journal or by presenting their results on a poster or during a talk at a scientific meeting or conference. 

​

​