Lab Report Guidelines – HB Whitehorne Middle School

Step One: Pose a Question

  • What do you want to find out?
  • Can you develop an experiment to answer your question?
  • Does your question make sense? Is it confusing?

Step Two: Hypothesis

  • What do you think will happen?
  • Use what you researched or know about the problem.
  • Use an If…then… format

Step Three: Lab Safety

  • List lab safety rules to follow during the experiment in bulleted form.

Step Four: Materials

  • List all of your materials in alphabetical order
  • Use a bulleted list
  • Include all of the materials you will need for your experiment.

Step Five: Procedure

  • What steps will you follow to find an answer?
  • Be SPECIFIC! Label your steps using numbers. (1, 2, 3, etc.)
  • Be clear – would someone else be able to follow your directions?
  • Include how you will collect your data.

Step Six: Data

  • Be sure to display your data in an organized manner. Use a table of chart to help you show your results. Include all labels and titles.
  • Include all relevant data that would support or disprove your hypothesis.

Step Seven: Analysis/Conclusion

  • You must write your conclusion in paragraph form using complete sentences.
  • Include the following items in your conclusion:
  • Restate your purpose or problem to the lab.
  • Restate your hypothesis.
  • Explain your dependent and independent variables.
  • Describe what happened (your procedure) during your experiment. Make sure to reference the data that you collected.
  • State if your hypothesis was supported or disproved by your data.
  • Explain any unexpected results or errors that may have been made.
  • Summarize what you learned during the experiment.

Step Eight: Share your results!

  • Share your lab report with others so they can hear about what you learned and discovered.

Name ______Date ______Period ______

Lab Activity for: ______

Lab Report Guidelines – HB Whitehorne Middle School

Step One: Pose a Question

  • What do you want to find out?
  • Write your question below as a sentence with a question mark at the end.

______

Step Two: Hypothesis

  • What do you think will happen?
  • Use an If…then… format when possible and write it as a complete sentence.

______

Step Three: Lab Safety

List lab safety rules to follow during the experiment in bulleted form.

Step Four: Materials

List all of your materials in alphabetical order, use a bulleted list, and include all of the materials you will need for your experiment.

Step Five: Procedure

  • What steps will you follow to find an answer?
  • Be SPECIFIC! Label your steps using numbers. (1, 2, 3, etc.)
  • Be clear – would someone else be able to follow your directions?
  • Include how you will collect your data.

______

Step Six: Data

  • Be sure to display your data in an organized manner. Use a table of chart to help you show your results. Include all labels and titles.
  • Include all relevant data that would support or disprove your hypothesis.

Step Seven: Analysis/Conclusion

  • You must write your conclusion in paragraph form using complete sentences.
  • Include the following items in your conclusion:
  • Restate your purpose or problem to the lab.
  • Restate your hypothesis.
  • Explain your dependent and independent variables.
  • Describe what happened (your procedure) during your experiment. Make sure to reference the data that you collected.
  • State if your hypothesis was supported or disproved by your data.
  • Explain any unexpected results or errors that may have been made.
  • Summarize what you learned during the experiment.

Step Eight: Share your results!

  • Share your lab report with others so they can hear about what you learned and discovered.