Goals

Get students prepared for the project

 

Details

Duration: 60 minutes

Assessments: Student discussions

Materials: Examples of scientfic questions - often these can be found in scientific periodicals or even newspapers for more recent/relevant examples of scientific questions.

 

Description

Leading up to the project, I wanted students familiar with the scientific method and lab work. That was part of the reason to conduct this project during the second semester, where they could apply what they learned to then fully demonstrate their understanding of the entire scientific method. I also spent some time with students on analyzing different scientific questions and then having students come up with their own scientific questions and how they would then test those questions.

The nature of this project does not tie it to a particular scientific unit so it can be done at any point in time. It does best correspond to a statistical analysis unit in Math such as standard deviation (IMP 1) or Kai Squared (IMP 2).

This was an more advanced performance/exhibition with digital video, amination, graphics, and scripting. This was another reason to include it in the second semester exhibition cycle.

Mythbusters Assessment Intro
This presentation was used to kickoff the Mythbusters exhibition....
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Project Overview Description
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Author Reflections

Often students do not pick scientific questions that are testable, have already been tested, or are too general. It is helpful to review and discuss scientific questions in small and larger groups for practice. Another idea I might try next time is to have the students watch a Mythbusters episode and diagram and discuss the steps that take place in the show. While we showed the students several different episode of Mythbusters, they still had trouble following a similar process when presenting their project.