What is Science?
CHAPTER 1
SECTION 1-1

The goal of science:
is to investigate and understand the natural
world, to explain events and use those
explanations to make predictions.
SCIENTIFIC SKILLS
1. Observation – gather info in an orderly way.
 2. Collect data

 Quantitative
– numbers
 Qualitative – descriptive
3. Data allows us to make inferences –
interpreting our data using our prior knowledge.
 4. Hypothesis – An explanation for a set of
observations. “educated guess”

OBSERVATION

Test your observation skills…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4
1-2 HOW SCIENTISTS WORK
Designing an experiment
 Ask a question
 Form a hypothesis (prediction & reason)
 Set up a controlled experiment

manipulated – variable that is changed
 responding – variable that reacts to the change
 controlled – variables (need 2) that stay the same

Record and Analyze Results
 Draw a conclusion
 Publish/Repeat experiment

SCIENCE OF THE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE

Discuss:
 Design
a way to experimentally find the “best”
chocolate chip cookie.
 What are your variables?
VALIDITY VS. RELIABILITY

Validity: How well a test measures what it is
supposed to measure.
 Something

in the procedure you did
Reliability: How well you are able to get stable &
consistent results.
 “R”
is for REPEAT.
SCIENCE OF THE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE

Back to the chocolate chip cookie experiment.
 How
would you make it reliable?
 How would you make it valid?
CONSTRAINTS & LIMITATIONS

Biology (and all sciences, really) seek solutions
to real-world problems.
A
constraint is a problem your real-world solution
might encounter.
 A limitation is why that constraint is limiting you.
CONSTRAINTS & LIMITATIONS: EXAMPLE

Some bears are getting into trash cans at
campgrounds near the forests. The park
rangers plan to trap & relocate these bears to
solve the problem of these bears getting into
the trash. Describe constraints (other than
cost) that park rangers could encounter when
trapping/relocating the bears. Describe how
each constraint is a limitation.
WHAT IS A THEORY?

When evidence from numerous investigations builds up a
hypothesis may become so well supported that we call it a
theory

Not as it is used colloquially “just a theory”… gravity is “just a theory”

Theory – WELL TESTED explanation that unifies or explains a
broad range of observations.

Example: Why are marsupials (kangaroo) only found in
Australia? Both the theory of plate tectonics and the theory
of evolution work together to answer this question.