Design an Experiment
Due Friday, by the end of class as a group Google Doc. Working in groups of three, you are to
design an experiment. The question that will you design an experiment for is up to you. This
WILL NOT be something we conduct in class, thus the question/experiment you come up with
can be as creative as you want. It does not need to be something realistic and can be mythical as
well. Your job as a group is to think using your experiences and interests, about what you want
to test. What is your question and experiment going to be about. Then using the scientific method
and guidelines below, create a full experiment.
You need decide what is the question that you will be testing. Identify what will your
independent and dependent variables be, what, if any, is your control group (positive and
negative…should at least have a negative control. What is your experimental group, the
constants, materials you need, units, how your measuring, and a step-by-step procedure of what
you will be doing. The procedure should be a step-by-step detailed list of directions. Do not
mash together 2 steps into 1. Separate steps into individual parts, describe how you will measure
things, give how long and times for the experiment, tell me what steps must be repeated, and
don’t assume someone will automatically know to do something…write it down as a step. Must
be a minimum of 10 steps.
Title: How to Organize your Experimental Design
Indent Paragraph: Describe the experiment and what your group will be doing briefly.
(Don’t tell me the variables and details just yet.)
Independent Variable:
Dependent Variable:
Constants:
Negative Control:
Positive Control:
Observations
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
Question
______________________________________________________________________________
Research
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
Hypothesis
______________________________________________________________________________
Procedure
Materials



Material 1
Material 2 (kg)
Material 3 (Quantity: 5)
1. Step 1 (gather all materials or maybe they don’t need all materials right away…list
it later on)
2. Step 2
3. Step 3
4. Step 4 (record analyze data…OR they record data after each measurement as they
go. If so, then do not write this step at the end, but at each instant that they need to
record data).
5. Last step: Clean up
GATHERING MATERIALS, RECORD DATA, and CLEAN UP do not count toward the
number steps needed (10).
Points Breakdown:
Description – Positive Control: 1pt each (total 6pts)
Observations: 2pts
Question: 3pts
Research: 2pts
Hypothesis: 3pts
Materials: 5pts
Procedure: 9pts
Contributions: (each group member participating): 5pts
Total: 35pts