Scientific Thinking

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Scientific Thinking

• STS

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Table of Contents

• Riddles and Scientific Thinking
• Scientific Method

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Opening Exercise

• You are going to participate in an exercise
  involving scientific thinking.
• You are walking in the desert and find a man
  lying face down with a pack on his back, dead.
  How did he die?
• I will answer yes/no questions only.

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Small Group Activity

• You will be given a series of 3 riddles, one at a
  time.
• One person in your group is the moderator
• List yes/no type questions on paper in a neat,
  orderly fashion and I will tell you the answers
  as you bring them up.
• The team with the least tries to figure out every
  situation individually wins.
• Keep your conversations quiet!!!

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How are riddles and scientific thinking alike?

• Try to make sense of data
• Data comes from our five senses!
• Data may appear contradictory
• Contradictory Two things that cant both be true
  at the same time

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What can we learn from this?

• Rule 1 It is often important to view a problem
  from more than one perspective.
• Lateral Thinking
• Questioning from the wrong point of view leads to
  little or no progress
• once the correct perspective is found the
  solution to the riddle is easily determined!

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What else can we learn?

• Rule 2 Prior assumptions concerning data are
  dangerous!
• Parachute riddle
• assuming he was wearing a common backpack
• Leads to overlooking the unexpected!
• Question everything!

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What else can we learn?

• Rule 3 Yes/no questions, properly formed, give
  us useful data!
• In scientific thinking, we call this a null
  hypothesis.
• Something testable
• Its either right or wrong (no gray area)
• Helps with setting up experiments!

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What else can we learn?

• Rule 4 Details that do not fit expected patterns
  are often very important!
• Parachute riddle
• No footprints around the body? Seems fishy
• Could lead to a quick, accurate solution!

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Scientific Method

• General method for problem solving
• Dont always follow exactly
• Typical problem you might face car wont start
• Scientists dont follow exactly either
• Lets go through the basic steps

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Scientific Method

• Step 1 Come up with a good, scientific question
• How does _______ affect __________?
• Step 2 Google it (not really)
• Has it already been done? (save yourself time!)
• Are there any good clues about an answer?

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Scientific Method

• Step 3 Make a guess
• Take a stab at answering your question
• Include both the cause and effect!
• Step 4 Test your guess
• This is the trickiest part!
• Make sure youre only changing one thing at a
  time!

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Scientific Method

• Step 5 Look at your data
• Do you notice any patterns?
• Are there any unusual results?
• Step 6 Draw a conclusion
• Answer your question based on what you saw
• --OR--
• Step 6 Redo the whole thing
• Explain your unusual results with a new
  experiment!