Activity 3
Good and Poor
Experiment Designs

Purpose

In Activity 2, you did an experiment to find the relationship between the length of a pendulum and how long it takes to make 10 back and forth swings. Suppose you wanted to convince someone that your results and conclusions were right. First, you would need to convince them that your experiment was a good experiment.

In this activity, you will first consider whether there is a relationship between the size of a magnet and its strength. Then you will perform an experiment to test your idea. After discussing the results of the experiment with the class, you will consider what makes the design of the experiment good or poor. Here is the key question for this activity.

What makes the design of an experiment good or poor ?

Record the key question for the activity on your record sheet.