Hello everyone, today we are going to go over
IXL A1: Identify steps of the scientific method.
Before we do some practice problems, I wanted
to go over the six steps of the scientific
method that IXL specifically talks about.
So those six items are: identify the question,
develop the hypothesis, test the hypothesis,
analyze the data, draw a conclusion, and communicate
the findings. So, for the first one, identify
the question. So, the first step in a scientific
investigation is to identify the question
that you want to answer. When you identify
the question, you use your observations and
prior knowledge to ask a question that focuses
on a problem. So effectively in this part,
all you're doing is just trying to figure
out: what's the question? What are you trying
to solve? The second part is developing the
hypothesis. So after you've identified your
question, you need to develop your hypothesis,
which is a possible explanation or answer
to a question. You develop the hypothesis
by proposing an explanation and predicting
what you expect to observe if the explanation
is correct. So effectively in this step, all
you're trying to do is you're trying to figure
out: what do you think is the answer to your
question is? Part 3, you have to test the
hypothesis. So a hypothesis is a possible
explanation. To decide if there is support
for the explanation, you need to test the
hypothesis. You can test your hypothesis in
many ways: you can make a series of observations,
or design and carry out an experiment. So,
in this phase, all you're doing is you're
trying to figure out ways to prove that you're
right (or wrong). Next part is analyzing the
data. Any method that you use to test your
hypothesis will require that you gather and
then analyze data. When you analyze the data,
you examine the data and look for patterns.
The patterns that you look for depend on the
predictions of your hypothesis. So effectively
in this step, all you're trying to do is figure
out: what is the information that you collected,
what is that information telling you? Step
five is drawing a conclusion. After you analyze
your data, you use the results to draw a conclusion
by deciding if the results support your hypothesis.
If the results match the predictions of your
hypothesis, then you can conclude that the
results support your hypothesis. So basically
at this part, you got your data, what is that
data telling you? That's pretty much all you're
doing here. Last part is communicate the findings.
Whether or not your results support the hypothesis,
it is important that you communicate the findings
by telling others about your experiment. You
can tell others about the question, hypothesis,
experiment, observations, results, and the
conclusions. You can also use graphs and diagrams.
So in this step, what you're trying to do
is you've done the experiment, you've answered
the question hopefully, and now you're trying
to tell other people: what did you figure
out? So, as a very quick refresher, I'm just
going to go over the six steps and go over
the question that usually pops up in my mind
whenever I talk about this. So for identifying
the question, main thing I kind of think of
is: what are you trying to solve? For developing
the hypothesis: what do you think is the answer?
For testing the hypothesis: how will you know
that you're right (or wrong)? For analyzing
the data: what information did you collect?
For drawing conclusion: what did your data
tell you? And for communicate: who will you
tell? So in this next part, we're just going
to go over some more examples of scientific
method in being used in practice, and some
more relatable examples to you. So, one of
the things that a lof of my students typically
talk about is Minecraft. And one of the questions
that they seem to ask and wonder about is,
while they're farming, and while they're trying
to get certain like drops for certain things,
one of the questions that they typically ask
is where is the best drop rate for xx item?
Xx item being whatever item you want to put
in there cause I honestly don't know any items
off the top of my head. So, if you're trying
to figure out the best drop rate for an item,
the logical hypothesis you would probably
have is that you think, "Oh, this place might
have a better drop rate, or that place might
have a better drop rate. So your hypothesis
will be like, best place for whatever item
it is, is in the desert. When you're testing
the hypothesis, you want to make sure that
you are going to not just the desert, but
you probably want to go to different locations
to see if other areas have a better drop rate.
So when you're testing it out, you probably
want to try farming in a desert, farming in
a Savana, farming in the plains, and I am
assuming that you're going to take out a monster,
a certain number of times, and in this one
we're saying you're going to take out a certain
monster that can drop the item 50 times . Analyzing
the data. What you would do in this step is
that you would collect the data. You would
figure out how many times that item dropped,
over how many times the monster was defeated,
and you'll be like, "Oh, in 50 times of defeating
whatever monster was you fought, you got 10
drops in the desert, you got 14 of those drops
you wanted in the Savana, and you got 6 drops
of that particular item in the plains." Based
off of this information, you would conclude
that, "Oh, it looks like the Savana seems
to have a higher drop rate." So, the best
place is potentially the Savana for whatever
item that item was. And when you communicate
with people, you would say, "The best place
for xx itesm is the Savana, based off me farming
this place, farming this monster, 50 times."
And now, branching into the realm of movies,
one common question that people tend to ask,
whenever they watch movies, is asking, "You
know what, what's the best movie of all time?"
Or sometimes, they'll be like, "What's your
favorite movie?" But, for making this a little
easier to digest, what's the best movie of
all time? So, if the question is what's the
best movie of all time, you need to figure
out what you think is the best movie of all
time is. So, I think the movie that happened
to make the most money is the best. That's
basically what the highest grossed means.
That basically means like most ticket sales
off that movie. So, when you're testing the
hypothesis, in this particular example, what
you could do is you could go to different
websites to maybe check out the amount of
money that particular movie made. One example
in here would be using Box Office Mojo, cause
it does have a lot of that statistical data
on their website. When you're analyzing the
data, you can analyze the data based off domestic
sales, which is sales in the US, you could
also do worldwide sales, which is basically
sales across the entire world. The information
here is currently posted from worldwide data.
And apparently the three highest grossing
movies were Avengers: Endgame, Avatar, and
Titanic. So based off this information, one
person would conclude that the best movie
of all time is Avengers: Endgame, cause that's
the one that made the most movie (money).
And when you want to communicate that information
out to other people, you would be like, "Yea,
the best movies are Avengers: Endgame, followed
by Avatar, followed by Titanic, because that
is the order in which the movies made the
most amount of money.
