What is a step in the scientific process?

For the first step, help your child form a question, hopefully one that can be answered! Good questions start with question words: How, What, When, Who, Which, Why, or Where? For example, which cup holds the most water? Which of these four objects do you think will float in water?

For young kids, background research can include talking together about what they already know about the question they're asking. Maybe you have a book or have seen a show about the topic. The goal for this step is to engage your scientist in some thinking.

A hypothesis is nothing more than a good guess at an answer to the question from Step 1. Ask your child, "Do you think the red cup or the blue cup will hold more water?" "Do you think the nail will sink or float? Do you think the tin foil boat will sink or float?"

Here comes the part you and your child have been waiting for! Help your scientist carry out the experiment. Encourage your child to be a careful observer of everything that happens. Talk about the steps to the experiment. "First, let's fill up our pitcher with water. Then, slowly pour the water into the cup."

This step is all about results. What happened in the experiment? Ask your child, "Did the foil sink or float?" "Which cup held the most water?" At this stage, help your child answer the question developed in Step 1.

Encourage your child to talk with siblings and other caregivers about the experiment. Have him talk about the steps used to conduct the experiment and what he learned.

Science experiments can be quick and fun to do at home. Sharing the scientific process with your child will help him begin to think and plan as scientists do.

Boy, Were We Wrong About Dinosaurs
By Kathleen V. Kudlinski

This is a very kid friendly introduction to how a scientific theory is formed through the careful collection and analysis of evidence — and how new evidence can turn a theory upside down.

How to Think Like a Scientist
By Stephen P. Kramer

Using everyday situations as examples, the author shows kids how to ask the right questions and set up a valid experiment — two critical pieces of the scientific method.

I See Myself
By Jerry Pallotta

The child becomes the scientist in this picture book for preschoolers — a young girl finds out about vision, light, and reflection by playing with a mirror, a flashlight, and a bouncing ball. Part of the Science Play series, which encourages hands-on discovery about the world.

The Magic School Bus and the Science Fair Expedition
By Joanna Cole

Ms. Frizzle has a mission: her students need science fair projects. What better way to get ideas than to learn from some of the all-time greats? The class heads to the museum to see the exhibit Great Scientists Through the Ages, where — suddenly — Galileo comes to life! An excellent introduction to scientists and what they do.

The Simple Truth About Scientists
By Donna Farland

Bust all those myths and find out how real scientists use their sharp observation and predicting skills, test, collect data, and describe what they learn.

Science Fair Bunnies
By Kathryn Lasky

This entertaining story featuring the inquisitive Clyde and Rosemary introduces children to scientific reasoning, logic, predicting, experimenting, recording observations, charting data, and analyzing results.

Why?
By Richard Torrey

All scientific inquiry begins with a question, something at which Jack is quite adept. He wonders why crackers have holes, why feet stink, and why hair doesn't hurt when cut. This book is sure to generate even more inquisitiveness about children's everyday experiences.

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The scientific method is a systematic way of learning about the world around us and answering questions. The key difference between the scientific method and other ways of acquiring knowledge are forming a hypothesis and then testing it with an experiment.

The number of steps can vary from one description to another (which mainly happens when data and analysis are separated into separate steps), however, this is a fairly standard list of the six scientific method steps that you are expected to know for any science class:

1. Purpose/Question
   Ask a question.
2. Research
   Conduct background research. Write down your sources so you can cite your references. In the modern era, a lot of your research may be conducted online. Scroll to the bottom of articles to check the references. Even if you can't access the full text of a published article, you can usually view the abstract to see the summary of other experiments. Interview experts on a topic. The more you know about a subject, the easier it will be to conduct your investigation.
3. Hypothesis
   Propose a hypothesis. This is a sort of educated guess about what you expect. It is a statement used to predict the outcome of an experiment. Usually, a hypothesis is written in terms of cause and effect. Alternatively, it may describe the relationship between two phenomena. One type of hypothesis is the null hypothesis or the no-difference hypothesis. This is an easy type of hypothesis to test because it assumes changing a variable will have no effect on the outcome. In reality, you probably expect a change but rejecting a hypothesis may be more useful than accepting one.
4. Experiment
   Design and perform an experiment to test your hypothesis. An experiment has an independent and dependent variable. You change or control the independent variable and record the effect it has on the dependent variable. It's important to change only one variable for an experiment rather than try to combine the effects of variables in an experiment. For example, if you want to test the effects of light intensity and fertilizer concentration on the growth rate of a plant, you're really looking at two separate experiments.
5. Data/Analysis
   Record observations and analyze the meaning of the data. Often, you'll prepare a table or graph of the data. Don't throw out data points you think are bad or that don't support your predictions. Some of the most incredible discoveries in science were made because the data looked wrong! Once you have the data, you may need to perform a mathematical analysis to support or refute your hypothesis.
6. Conclusion
   Conclude whether to accept or reject your hypothesis. There is no right or wrong outcome to an experiment, so either result is fine. Accepting a hypothesis does not necessarily mean it's correct! Sometimes repeating an experiment may give a different result. In other cases, a hypothesis may predict an outcome, yet you might draw an incorrect conclusion. Communicate your results. The results may be compiled into a lab report or formally submitted as a paper. Whether you accept or reject the hypothesis, you likely learned something about the subject and may wish to revise the original hypothesis or form a new one for a future experiment.

Sometimes the scientific method is taught with seven steps instead of six. In this model, the first step of the scientific method is to make observations. Really, even if you don't make observations formally, you think about prior experiences with a subject in order to ask a question or solve a problem.

Formal observations are a type of brainstorming that can help you find an idea and form a hypothesis. Observe your subject and record everything about it. Include colors, timing, sounds, temperatures, changes, behavior, and anything that strikes you as interesting or significant.

When you design an experiment, you are controlling and measuring variables. There are three types of variables:

• Controlled Variables: You can have as many controlled variables as you like. These are parts of the experiment that you try to keep constant throughout an experiment so that they won't interfere with your test. Writing down controlled variables is a good idea because it helps make your experiment reproducible, which is important in science! If you have trouble duplicating results from one experiment to another, there may be a controlled variable that you missed.
• Independent Variable: This is the variable you control.
• Dependent Variable: This is the variable you measure. It is called the dependent variable because it depends on the independent variable.