PROCESS SKILL QUESTIONS

NAME ______

CLASSIFICATION & ORDERING

Given the following set of objects:

- wooden toothpick- safety pin

- paper clip- 10 ft. tree limb

- aluminum baseball bat- hand saw blade

  1. Serial order the objects (use the back of this sheet).
  1. Classify the objects using a complete, multistage, classification scheme (key).
  1. Develop a dichotomous key for the objects.

EXPLORATION:

COMMUNICATION & KEEPING DATA

Suppose that you decided to perform an activity called:

“How many drops of water will fit on a penny?

For a group of 30 students:

  1. You pair them as lab partners (15 student pairs).
  2. You provide each pair with: 1 1989 penny, 1 eye dropper , and

a small cup of water.

  1. You ask one student to count and the other to place water on the penny

one drop at a time.

  1. You inform them to continue one drop at a time until their partner sees

water spill off the penny.

Your student pairs obtain the following results (in number of drops):

14, 13, 14, 15, 14, 16, 13, 16, 15, 14, 14, 12, 13, 12, 14

Q? How might you organize the data to help students make sense out of it?

OBSERVATIONS, INFERENCES, AND PREDICTIONS

  1. On a cold snowy day in January, Johnny doesn’t come to school.

Give three alternative inferences that explain this observation.

a.

b.

c.

  1. Which of the following represent inferences and which represent observations

of an African violet plant?

_____ a. The plant is green.

_____ b. The plant requires indirect sunlight.

_____ c. The flowers are 1.5 cm long.

_____ d. The plant blooms all year long.

_____ e. The flowers are odorless.

  1. Identify the statements about the following situation that are inferences,

predictions and observations.

A boy and his dog are running down the street. A car comes by and hits the dog. The car stops and takes the boy and dog to the vet.

_____ a. The dog is taken to the vet.

_____ b. The dog is injured.

_____ c. The man in the car knows the boy.

_____ d. The dog will recover.

_____ e. The car stopped.

VARIABLES (Identification)

A group of fifth grade students wanted to determine whether different colored

light bulbs might make plant seedlings grow better than they do under white

light. Identify the critical variables in the experiment.

Manipulated Variable ______

Responding Variable ______

Three essential Control Variables would be:

  1. ______
  1. ______
  1. ______

OPERATIONALLY DEFINING

Another group of fifth grade students wanted to see if they could determine the

amount of water that would optimize plant seedling growth. The students grew

groups of pea plants for 4 weeks for 5 treatment levels (5 ml/day; 10 ml/day;

20 ml/day; 30 ml/day; and 40 ml/day), which represented the manipulated

variable. Identify the responding variable and provide at least three alternative

operational definitions for the responding variable.

Responding Variable ______

Operational Definitions:

  1. ______
  1. ______
  1. ______

FORMING HYPOTHESES

  1. What hypothesis was the class testing below in the next section, question #3?
  1. Describe how you would test the hypothesis that gibberelic acid causes plants to grow

at a faster rate.

  1. A teacher decides to have her class determine how light affects the growth of plants.

The teacher divides her class into four groups. One group exposes their plants to light 4 hours per day, the second group 6 hours per day, the third group 8 hours per day, and the fourth group 10 hours per day. At the beginning and the end of two weeks, the students measure the height of their plants in cm and record the amount of growth. Identify the responding and manipulated variables and define them operationally as did the teacher.

PREDICTION

During a “battery and bulbs” laboratory activity, a student tested which

combinations would make a light bulb “light up”; however, the student only

tested three combinations on the sample board shown below (a “+” indicates a

completed circuit, and a “-“ indicates a non-completed circuit):

  1. .B
  1. .D
  1. .F

Results

AB +

BD +NOTE: No other combinations have been recorded!

AC -

Q? Predict which of the following will light (+), will not light (-), or you are unable to

determine (?) based on the results given above.

_____ BC _____ BE _____ AF _____ AD _____ CD

COMMUNICATION IN SCIENCE: data collection and interpretation

  1. Draw a bar graph of the following data: (or broken-line graph)

Students Enrolled EDCI 614

# of Students Taking EDCI 614 / Semester in
College
0
20
30
10
5
2
0
0 / 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8