Scientific Method Thinking Like a Scientist

When you were very young, you explored the things around you by touching and tasting. As you grew, you asked questions about the world in which you live. What is lightning Where does a rainbow come from Why is water blue As an adult, you may have wondered how antibiotics work or why vitamins are important to your health. Every day, you ask questions and seek answers to organize and make sense of the world around you. 

Although the process of trying to understand nature is unique to each scientist, a set of general principles, called the scientific method, helps to describe how a scientist thinks. 

Observations. The first step in the scientific method is to observe, describe, and measure an event in nature. Observations based on measurements are called data. 

Hypothesis. After sufficient data are collected, a hypothesis is proposed, which states a possible interpretation of the observations. The hypothesis must be stated in a way that it can be tested by experiments. 

Experiments. Experiments are tests that determine the validity of the hypothesis. Often, many experiments are performed to test the hypothesis, and a large amount of information is collected. Many experiments are needed to support the original hypothesis. However, if just one experiment produces a different result than predicted by the hypothesis, a modified hypothesis must be proposed. Then new experiments are conducted to test the new hypothesis. 

Experiments. Several experiments may be done to test the hypothesis. 

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Scientific Method Thinking Like a Scientist LEARNING GOAL Describe the activities that are part of the scientific method. 

A new section, Scientific Method Thinking Like a Scientist, has been added, which discusses the scientific method in everyday terms. 

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