SCIENCE IS FUN!   SCIENCE IS EXPLORING!   SCIENCE IS DISCOVERY!

Science is looking for answers to questions you have and questions you haven't even thought of yet. You do some form of science everyday. Science is exploring the answers to questions like "What if?" and "What about...?" and "How can we...?" Science is a way of discovering the world.

So what happens if you find a wrong answer? Well, that is what scientists have done for hundreds of years and are still doing today! For instance, scientists once thought the world was flat and the earth was the center of the universe. Answers that scientists once thought were correct are no longer even considered. By using more powerful tools, scientists are always learning more about our world and how it works. Doing science means having new ideas of how things work based on what we already know. Sometimes, the wrong answers are more important than the right ones.

Look around. Talk to people. What is interesting in your world? Have you watched a spider work, a plant grow, your pet playing? What books have you read or programs on have you watched on TV that interest you? Start with what interests you and begin to think about how that topics relates to science.

Questions about what? Your questions will come from what you already know from books, teachers, parents, and your own experiences. Start by studying what you already know. Then ask your questions. What other things do you want to know about whatever you are studying? Many times as you study what you already know, your questions will change. That's OK. Make a list of all your questions and then select just one at a time to investigate. Example: What will happen to a plant if it is left in the dark?

How can you explore your questions? What kind of tools do you need? Where can you go for help? Gather up all the stuff you will need to do your investigation. Write out a list of everything that has to be done, for example, if you are studying a plant these are some of the things you have to decide:

1. How do you make a dark place? Will you put the plant in a closet or cover it with a box or what?
2. How often will you water the plants?
3. Put one plant in the dark place and leave one plant in the light.
4. Make a schedule of what you are going to look at or measure (how often, for how long, who does the measuring?)
5. When will you know the experiment is done?

Carefully watch what happens. Write down everything you see. Often, the best way to record what happens is to draw pictures (color them if that will help).

Make a summary of everything that you did and all the information you collected. You can use the computer to make pictures, add clip art, or make graphs.

These are your results. What have you learned about your question? Write up everything you did and the summary of your information and explain it to someone else.

It was so much fun the first time! Now you get to do it again with another question. Or, ask the same question in a different way and redo the experiment.

last mod: 2/16/00  /plm