Your experiment testing variables that affect voltage from our Solar Panels is over!
Now it is time to use your writing skills to explain to other scientists what you think about the experiment we just did.
You are trying to communicate your ideas to other scientists so clear and complete sentences are absolutely necessary.
You can hand write your paragraph but most of us are using our drive account and a google doc in your science folder on drive. Don't print it out! We will be having a peer review session to help improve our writing and to help us make sure that we are thinking clearly about the results of our experiments. Then we will print them in class.
CONCLUSIONS INSTRUCTIONS:
Write a paragraph for each of the three sets of questions to discuss what you think about the experiment we just completed - You don't have to answer every question, but think about each one as you choose what to write.
Wherever you can, USE EVIDENCE to support your ideas. "I think this because....facts." Evidence can be from the data, from your own observations, or what we learned from our research in the sciencesaurus books about light which has a lot to do with the voltage our panels produced.
For this to make sense to someone who reads it your sentences should restate some of the questions in your paragraph.
Example:
Instructions Question: Do the results support your hypothesis?
your paragraph: My hypothesis was not supported by the results of the test.
Paragraph One Theme: What do you think about the materials now? Has your thinking changed or been reinforced?
Tell us about your hypothesis first. then think about these questions:
Did the results of this experiment support your hypothesis or do you think something different now?
Which materials didn't behave like you thought they would?
Which results surprised you?
Which materials surprised you? What do you think about how light interacted with that material now?
What new things did you observe during the test that might help explain what happened to cause the different voltages we measured?
Paragraph Two Theme: Do you think that we can trust the results of the experiment?
First look at your own teams data all by itself.
Does the data show a clear difference between the experimental groups and the control group? Did some tests clearly produce more voltage than others? How much more? Are some groups very close together (How close?) with data that overlap This can make it hard to know which one actually produced the most and may mean we would need to run more tests to learn more.
Are there pieces of data or groups of trials that look strange and don't follow the pattern/ These might be outliers and make you trust the result a little less. Are your ranges small enough to trust?
Did other teams in other classes do similar experiments that could support your results?
Think about your procedure and your testing setup:
How well did your team do at controlling variables that might have affected the data?
What are some variables that you know were not completely controlled between your groups of trials?
Are there problems with our materials or procedures that make you trust our data less? Describe them in detail.
Paragraph Three Theme:
How could we improve or expand on this experiment if we were going to do it a second time?
What could we change about our procedure and how we ran our trials to improve the fairness of your test and make the results more consistent and trustworthy or more clear between the materials that seem similar.
Should we have run more trials?
What other materials could we use to design a better testing setup or a new experiment to learn more about how the things that affect our solar panels?
