Program VENI-VIDI-VICI Hand-on Experiment

Title of the Experiment

Choose a title that reflects your topic Usually is in the form a `Question? What problem are you trying to solve or/answer?
Example: How does caffeine affect the growth of a plant?

Purpose or aims
Write 1 to 3 sentences describing what you want to find out in this experiment.
Example: The purpose of this experiment is to find out if a pea plant will grow taller when given caffeine rather than water.

Research
Research should be designed to get background information about your topic, before you begin your experiment.
Develop 3 questions that you want to answer about your topic. Try to use various sources for your research. Suggested sources:

Books Magazines Newspapers Internet

Hypothesis
Make your guess Once you have done some research, you will need to come up with a hypothesis. Use your research to make an educated guess about how you think your experiment will turn out.
Use the If the amount of __________ is (increased or decreased) then I think ________will (increase or decrease). format Example: If I pour 100ml of coffee on four pea plants and pour 100ml of water in another four pea plants, then I think the plants with coffee will grow taller because caffeine will stimulate the plants.

Materials
Make a complete list of everything you will use in your experiment. Tell how many and how much of each object used. Use metric measures only.

Apparatus

Make a complete list of equipment and glassware used in the experiment. Sketch the diagram or layout of the experiment

Procedure
Design your experiment

Design your experiment so that they only test for one thing.
Make sure that you do the same things to all groups of objects being

tested. Example: If you are testing plants: Use the same seeds. Plant all of them with the same soil. Put them all in the same amount of light for the same amount of time. The only thing that should be different about the plants is that one received coffee and the other water.

Procedure
To increase the validity of your experiment

Make sure to keep a control group. Keep in mind sample size.

The more objects in your sample the more valid your experiment.

Use multiple trials. (At least three.)

Procedure
Write down step-by-step directions on how to do your experiment.

Do not leave anything out!

Example Given in the next slide

Procedure
Example: 1. 2. 3. Get 8 pea plants ( 100 cm tall). Place 4 pea plants on each tray. Label one set of plants Caffeine.

4.
5. 6. 7. 8.

Label the second set Water.

Pour 100ml of coffee( with caffeine ) onto the soil of each plant twice a week. Pour 100ml of water onto the soil of each plant twice a week. Measure each plant with a metric ruler Record data in record book.

Do and Observe your experiment.

What are your variables? Independent Variable (the thing you change): (X ) Dependent Variable (data you collect) (Y) Constants What will you keep the same throughout the experiment (C)
Record all your observations if there are changes with regard to the variable parameters concerned: ie: temp, time, activity, amount, colour, viscosity, density, intensity etc

Make Charts and Graphs

Display data using charts, tables, and graphs. Use the Graph Club or Inspiration program. Choose the correct graphs for your data.

Bar-comparison Pie-percentage Line-change/time

Results and Discussion

Using your data write a few sentences how your experiment turned out.
Example: From reading my charts and graphs, I know that Plant Group #1 grew an average of 40cm with 100ml of coffee. Plant Group #2 grew and average of 20cm with 100ml of water. The Plant Group that was given coffee grew 20cm more on the average than the Plant Group that was given water.

Conclusion
Write down why you think your experiment turned out the way it did, include if your hypothesis was supported or not.

Be sure to use the term My hypothesis was/was not supported. Do not say I was right/wrong. Even when your hypothesis was not supported you gain information about your topic. Use scientific reasoning for conclusion.

Conclusion
Example: My hypothesis was supported. The plants that were watered with coffee ( caffeine ) grew taller than those that were given water. Therefore, caffeine has a positive effect on the growth of pea plants. This may be due the fact that caffeine is a stimulant. The caffeine could have stimulated the plant to grow.

Future Considerations
Tell what variable you would change if you could do the experiment again. Tell how you might take your experiment to the next step.

Future Considerations
Example If I could do this experiment again , the variable I would change would be the amount of caffeine I would place in each plant group. I would use 50ml for plant group #1, 100ml for plant group #2, and 150ml for plant group #3. I would also have three control groups of plants. One would get 50ml of water. One would get 100ml of water. And one would get 150ml of water. I want to see which amount of caffeine helps plants grow the tallest.

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