Hello everybody just a little video for
Prep for Basic Biology
Giving a little introduction to the
scientific method,
helping to cultivate some proper way of
thinking about science and how to ask
appropriate questions.
This is for part 3
in the online handout to help you answer
those questions.
When you're done with this little video 
should be able to
ask the appropriate question in a
biological sense
deal to analyze an experiment that is
provided in here
talk about that a little bit and you
should be able to start setting up your
own experiments and
include those proper variables so...
lets look at what the scientific method is.
We'll review. This was already covered in
Chapter one, but simply put the
scientific method is just a set of
guidelines
or rules that allow scientists to
properly explore
and understand any scientific phenomena.
You explore these concepts in Chapter One.
You watched the video on scientific variables,
answered all the questions that went
along with that.
We're gonna briefly review the steps.
When you're looking at this diagram, and you're understanding the steps of the
scientific method,
you should be aware that any text you
look at might have slight
variations from this model.
There are some important concepts that
you're gonna see over and over again
anytime you look at the steps of the
scientific method.
You're always gonna wanna ask a question, you're gonna analyze that question,
do some background research to
understand your topic,
importantly you're going to construct a
hypothesis.
In our class we try to use this if then
statement.
We've talked about that already a little
bit and it'll discuss that in the handout.
If then statements will give you a
proper way to
test that hypothesis. So you design your
experiment to appropriately
assess the hypothesis, perform that
experiment,
analyze the results, and draw conclusions.
If the hypothesis is supported, you report
the results if the hypothesis is not
supported,
you can still reporters results but you
wanna try to modify that hypothesis.
So this is a continuous effort in
science,
to explore any phenomena try to
understand
what is going on in the world. So
planning an experiment is
a very important part. You've already now
analyzed and
developed your hypothesis. Now you wanna plan an experiment.
Most experiments are going to have
to groups associated with it. You need to
have
a way to determine
if the thing you are manipulating
actually
changes something, changes that
dependent variable. So you need to have
the experimental group the thing you're
manipulating, the thing you are changing.
For example, if you're looking at
the effects of fertilizer on plant
growth. A very simple experiment. You need to have
a group that gets the fertilizer. This would be your experimental group.
But how would you know if that
fertilizer actually
aided the plants in growth? You need a
baseline
this is where your control group comes
into play. This provides a baseline. This
would be a group,
every condition stays the same
in the two groups.
The one thing you're changing, that
independent variable, is nitrogen,
or is fertilizer. That's what you're gonna
give to the experimental group.
The control group would not receive it. A
good experiment is going to have
more than one set of data. So you're gonna have more than one plant
We'll kind of work on that when we get to
setting up your own experiments.
But this helps to remove any problems,
any errors that may occur, you can
average a lot of data together.
You're going to define dependent and
independent variables.
And you're gonna test that hypothesis. Oops. Notice there's a little
spelling typo in there. It should say
hypothesis with an S on the end.
You're gonna test that hypothesis this is
planning a good experiment,
and we're gonna work towards this during
this week two.
Then we'll talk more about it when we
get into
the other parts and when we are in the
face to face meeting.
We'll start with an example into the
scientific method.
This is an old old experiment in
microbiology. Very cool. Very interesting
experiment to really help refute this idea of spontaneous generation.
Briefly, what spontaneous generation 
stated was
living things were able to form from non-living entities.
Now, as college students you may have
ordered some pizza delivery, ate a couple
slices, left it sit out.
Well after a few days, you might notice some mold, bacteria growing on the pizza.
The pizza wasn't living, but now we have
these living things all over it.
People once thought that this living
material could have just spontaneously
formed from the non-living matter.
We understand now that there are
bacteria all over the place.
In the air on our hands, that can fall
off land on the
pizza and start to grow. It wasn't
always this way,
and Louis Pasteur in his famous swan-neck flask experiment
helped to refute this
hypothesis of spontaneous generation.
He made an hypothesis in this if then
format.
If living organisms are derived from air
and do not spontaneously generate,
then bacteria should not grow in the swan-neck flask.
This was his hypothesis. He set it up appropriately. If you look in that picture
on the left, you have a flask
containing some bacterial growth media. It's like basically
chicken broth. It's a nice energy source.
On the top, you'll notice this s-shaped or swan-shaped
cylinder. It's open to the air
that allows air to exchange back and forth.
On the right side, you'll notice the same flask without
that swan-neck. So the thing you're
manipulating here, you're changing
the type of flask. What he noticed,
he sterilized both. There was no life
inside of the flask
in either situation. The flask with
the swan neck,
after many weeks, did not grow anything
living.
The flask that was open to the air,
without the swan-neck,
in less than a day was teeming with
living organisms.
So what do you suppose this means? How did he analyzed these results?
So his experiment, very nice, very neat
experiment,
he had an independent variable, a dependent variable. I'm not going to
specifically tell you what these are. It's your job to be able to identify
those different variables. He had his control
group and his experimental group.
In conclusion, his hypothesis was
supported.
That swan-neck flask, did not have any
bacterial
growth in it. That supported the
hypothesis.
His analysis of this, his conclusion
was that the bacteria were present in
the air.
In the swan-neck, they got trapped
at the bottom of that first loop.
In this first loop, the bacteria got trapped and were not able to get up
and back into the flask. When that swan-neck was removed,
they would fall directly into the media
from the air and then start to grow.
So he has a nice analysis, and this is
what we know happens
to living things now and how living
things are derived from
other previously living organisms.
So I want you to be able to do now, 
analyze that first experiment.
And now you want to be able to plan your
own experiment.
This is not an experiment that's going
to be performed.
It's just developing questions,
developing hypotheses, and developing
some sort of experiment.
Including your independent and dependent
variables
and your control and experimental groups
or variable groups.
So you want to just come up with some
idea.
Make some observations. Ask some question.
Provide a hypothesis using that if then
statement.
Indicate those different variables
and those different groups.
This is what you want to do for this
part of the assignment.
It helps you to understand the scientific
method.
It should be nothing complicated. It doesn't
have to be really anything too deep.
Something simple enough where you can
define these different parameters.
After that, you can move on to part 4.In
part 4
of your online handout, you
are gonna look at a plant experiment,
and come up with a question.
We are going to perform plant
experiments throughout the semester.
So we're gonna start by posing some questions and maybe coming up with some good ideas.
You'll work in groups on your experiments,
but right now individually,
I want you to pose a question. Write it in
the handout.
When you're done writing it in the handout, you'll want to post it to the discussion board.
Also comment on a peer's question
that they're asking about plants.
Give some constructive criticism. Maybe
it's good. Maybe it
could use some improvement. Maybe it's interesting and you just want to let someone
know that their question is a good
question. An interesting question.
Create some online community there.
When you're done with part 4, then we
will meet. Hopefully your handout will be
completed. It needs to be completed to
enter the classroom.
We'll have our discussion. We will work
through some material. Get into groups and
work on
designing an experiment. And when all
that is done,
then you can work on the quiz. You'll have
two attempts on the quiz.
Once again, there's really no timetable for the quiz. Just take it when you start to
understand the material.
Ideally you have all these quizzes
completed prior to taking
the exam at the end of unit 1. If you have any questions,
Come to the face to face chat with them. We can go over any questions that you have.
With that. we'll stop this little chat.
Hopefully you have a good idea of what's
going on in this
week 2 online handout, and you have a
good understanding of the scientific
method.
Good luck, and we'll see you next week.
