The Scientific Method
Consumer Reporting Magazine
Helping consumers make smart choices!
To Heritage Middle School Students:
We here at Consumer Reporting Magazine are doing a special investigative
report to determine if certain products live up to their advertising claims. We are
asking schools across the nation to help us with this project so that we can collect
as much data as possible.
As upcoming scientists, your school has been chosen to test the claim made by
Bounty Paper Towel. Bounty claims that it is more absorbent than the leading
brand (Brawny) and store brand (A & P). Is this claim accurate? It is your job
to find out. However, in order to draw a good conclusion you will need to follow
the scientific method and perform a carefully controlled experiment.
Good Luck! We look forward to seeing the results of your hard work..
Sincerely,
Consumer Report Data Collection Division
Step 1: State the Purpose
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What is the problem we are trying to solve?
Write it as a question.
THINK: Write an experimental question for
Consumer Reporting Magazine.
Will Bounty paper towel hold more water than
other leading brands and generic?
____________________________________
Identify your Variables
 To design your experiment you must identify what you will
change (test) and what you will measure.
 THINK! -As a group, write your answers in the boxes below.
I will change (test):
Brand of
paper towel
Independent variable
I will measure:
How many ml
were absorbed
(difference)
dependent variable
I will NOT change (conditions held constant so it is a fair test):
Size of
paper towel
control variables
Source of water
Time dunked
in water
Step 2: Make a Hypothesis
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To make a hypothesis, think about the following:
When I change the
Brand of
paper towel
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What will happen to the
amount of water
each can hold
THINK! – As a group, fill in the hypothesis.
the brand of towel
If I change _______________,
then I think that
Bounty will hold the most water
they advertise the most.
______________________,because_______________
Step 3: List the Materials

This is list of all the tools you will need to
carry out your experiment.
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THINK! – Look in your lab buckets and make
a bulleted list of materials.

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____________________
paper towels
_____________________
Water
Pipette (dropper)
_____________________
Graduated cylinders
__________
___tweezers__________
Step 4: Develop a Procedure

Develop the steps for your experiment.

THINK! – Write a numbered list of steps explaining how
you will test each brand of paper towel to see how much
water each can hold.
1. Add water to the 100 ml line of cylinder
 2. Using a tweezer, dunk a 5
X 5 square of paper towel into cylinder just until it’s covered (for
5 seconds)
 3. Pull towel out, let drip for 5 seconds and record how many
ml were absorbed
 3. Record your data in the data table.
 4. Repeat for Brawny and store brand (A & P)-start with 100ml
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Step 5: Collect Data
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Conduct your experiment and record results.

THINK! – Use the table below to record your data.
What I changed:
What I measured (specify units):
_______________ ________________________
Trial 1
Bounty
Brawny
Store brand(A & P)
Trial 2
Trial 3
Average
Step 6: Write a Conclusion

This is a summary of your results.

THINK! – Discuss as a group and write a brief
paragraph explaining whether or not your hypothesis
was supported (correct) or not supported (incorrect).
Make sure to reference the data you collected when
writing. If you encountered any problems, please state
this as well.
Summarize what happened
Was your hypothesis rejected or accepted
Possible areas of error
Areas for improvement and future study (how would you
take what you did and expand on it in a future lab)
_____________________________________________
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Ex.
In this lab, we compared three types of paper towels,
Bounty, Brawny and a generic store brand. We
wanted to see if Bounty is really the “quicker picker
upper” (which absorbs the most) as the ad suggests.
Our hypothesis was accepted because based on our
class results, Bounty absorbed the most. Areas of
possible error include not dunking it until whole towel
was covered, not waiting the same amount of time,
and not cutting the paper equally (size). I would
improve all of these points if I did it again to keep it a
controlled experiment. In the future, I may also
compare more brands of paper towels and compare it
to all Life science classes for a greater population
size.
Step 7: Communicate Results
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THINK! 
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Fill in your group’s average under Group 1.
Go to each lab group and record their AVERAGE in the table below .
Afterwards, calculate the class average for each brand of towel.
Paper
Towel
Grp
1
Grp
2
Grp
3
Grp
4
Grp
5
Grp
6
Bounty
Brawny
Store
brand

THINK! – What can we tell Consumer Reporting?
Class
AVG.