|
Activity 5 Evaluating Experiment Conclusions Purpose In the previous activity, you learned that an experiment to determine a relationship between variables must be a fair test. If it is not a fair test, then any conclusion drawn from the data is not valid. Suppose, however, that the experiment is a fair test. Then someone draws a conclusion from the data. Would you accept the conclusion as valid? You might accept it if you decided that the person supported the conclusion with good reasons. You might not accept it if you decided the supporting reasons were not good. For a conclusion to be valid, it must be supported with good reasons. The purpose of this activity is to find out how you can tell if the reason for a conclusion is good or poor. The key question for this activity is:
During this activity, you will also work on the skills Contribute Your Ideas and Reasons and Respect Your Team and Their Ideas. Explore Your Ideas A class did an experiment to find the relationship between two variables. One variable (the manipulated variable) was pendulum length. The other variable (the responding variable) was the amount of time for 10 back and forth swings. Five teams took part in the experiment. They did a different experiment from the one you did earlier. Each team was given the same set of four pendulums of different lengths (50 cm, 60 cm, 70 cm, and 80 cm). They were asked to measure the time for each pendulum to make 10 back and forth swings. The table on the next page shows the results from the five teams, and includes the class best values and uncertainties. All measurements were made to the nearest 0.1 s. You can assume the experiment was a fair test.
|
Record the key question on your record sheet.
