“Despicable Me” Variables Worksheet
Gru thinks that a soda pop will increase the productivity
of minions. He creates three groups of 50 minions each
and assigns each group the same task, to staple sets of
papers.
Identify the:
1. Independent Variable:
Group 1 drinks 100mL of the soda pop while they work.
Group 2 drinks 50mL of the soda pop while they work.
Group 3 is not given the soda pop while they work.
3. Controlled variable:
After an hour, Gru counts how many sets of papers each
group stapled. He made the data table below.
Group 1
Group 2
Group 3
2. Dependent Variable:
4. What should Gru’s conclusion be? How did
the soda pop affect the number of papers each
group stapled? Use data (numbers) to support
your answer.
Number of sets of paper stapled
2 200
1 703
980
Dr. Nefario notices that his window is covered in a
strange blue glitter. His friend Barney tells him that
coconut juice will get rid of the blue glitter. Dr. Nefario
decides to check this out by spraying half of the window
with coconut juice. He sprays the other half of the window
with water. After 3 days of "treatment" there is no change
in the appearance of the blue glitter on either side of the
window.
Identify the:
1. Independent Variable:
2. Dependent Variable:
3. What is a hypothesis Dr. Nefario can write
about his observation?
If
then
because
Miss Hattie was told that a new computer claims to work
65% faster. Interested in this product, she buys the new
computer and compares it to her current computer.
Identify the:
1. Independent Variable:
She runs her ‘adoption’ program on computer A (current
computer) and the same ‘adoption’ program on computer
B (new computer)
Her results are below.
Time to Run Program
Computer A
30 minutes
Computer B
15 minutes
2. Dependent Variable:
3. What should Miss Hattie’s conclusion be? Use
data (numbers) to support your answer.
5. How could Miss Hattie improve her
experiment?
Margo believes that her coco mint crunchy cookies are
much better than her competitors best sellers, peanut
butter brickle. To test her theory, she leaves out two
packages of cookies (each package contains 60 cookies) in
the minions lab and then records how many cookies are
left after exactly ½ hour. These are her results:
Type of
Cookie
Coco Mint
Crunchy
Peanut
Butter
Brickle
Identify the:
1. Independent Variable:
2. Dependent Variable:
Number Remaining
2
3. What should Margo’s conclusion be?
5
5. How could Margo improve her experiment?
Edith is working on a science project. Her task is to
answer the question:"Do toques affect the speed of hair
growth?”. Margo, Gru, Dave (the minion) and Agnes
volunteer to help with her experiment.
Identify the:
1. Independent Variable:
2. Dependent Variable:
3. Write a possible hypothesis Edith could write
for this experiment.
If
then
because
4. Write a procedure (list of steps) Lisa could follow to complete this experiment. You should have at least 3
steps.