If you missed the gummy bear lab, you must type a two page paper in your own words.
This paper should tell the history of the scientific method. What are the steps of the scientific method? Who discovered it? Who uses it? How is it used? Why is it important? What is the difference between a theory and a law? What is a placebo?
How is a placebo used and why is it important to have one? Make sure to include the difference between osmosis and diffusion. Why are they important? Give examples that show you understand what they are. How are they used in everyday life and in medicine? How does high salt concentration affect osmosis and diffusion. You may include small pictures.
For both of the examples you must state the problem, control, constants, independent variable, dependent variable, and hypothesis. Also describe how the research was completed and how it impacted the experiment, explain the experiment, describe how the information was collected, state how the information was analyzed, and state the conclusion .
Example #1
The Anytown, Virginia School Board was wondering what to do to help student achievement in their 5 high schools. Many of their research materials stated that high school students have a different sleep pattern than adult AND young children. According to much of the research, teenagers, because of their internal biological clocks, tend to wake up later in the morning and go to bed later at night. The school board decided that if they delayed the start of the school day for their high schools, then the students would do better in school.
Beginning with the 2004-2005 school year, Anytown high schools started at 9:00 and ended at
3:30. To compensate for the high school change, the elementary schools started earlier.
Throughout the school year, school officials tracked student grades at progress report time and at report card time. They also recorded all of the standardized test scores at the end of the year. After compiling the information, they compared it to the same information from last year.
In every category, students improved. The School Board decided that because of the time change, student achievement did improve.

Example #2
Robinson Industries (RI), a research and development company is studying the effect of their new plant food on the growth of new grass. RI is hoping that their plant food will help grass grow so that farmers can replenish the grass on their land so that their cattle will always have something to eat. Over the course of three years, they have studied current chemical solutions to see how well they affected grass growth. They used this research to make their decision on what chemical concoction to use. They decided that chemicals A, C, and F, combined in equal parts, would be the best solution.
In the spring of 2004, RI paid 1000 farmers to use their new formula on half of their land used for grazing. RI guaranteed the farmers that it would not harm the cattle (RI agreed to reimburse the farmers for any cattle lost due to consumption of the chemicals). Half the farmers received the ACF chemical solution; the other half received an inert solution that would not affect the grass. Each week, farmers were required to record the growth of their grass and any other observations they had. Robinson Industries collected the data weekly, from March through
August. By graphing the farmers’ data, RI was able to see an upward trend in grass growth by the farmers who used their chemical. RI decided that their solution was successful, and they will begin selling it commercially in the spring of 2005.