Experimental Design and Data Table Chart

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Sai018
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Jan 02, 2015 11:34 am
Occupation: Student, 9th Grade
Project Question: Need help on creating a data table, that is related to Astronomy.
Project Due Date: January 12th, 2015
Project Status: I am finished with my experiment and analyzing the data

Experimental Design and Data Table Chart

Post by Sai018 »

I am in 9th Grade, someone please help me . I have looked everywhere but I couldn't find an answers. My topic is I am counting stars with a software I created. And i need the control, in this experiment. What is my data, I need to have data in a table and make it into a bar graph because I am comparing two things. I am comparing for which is better, a human counting stars or a computer counting stars. My dependent variable is the number of stars that are found. But what is my independent variable and the data for this experiment?

I think this project is catagorized as an engineering experiment. Please help me! This project deadline is coming up.
tdaly
Former Expert
Posts: 1415
Joined: Sat Nov 08, 2003 11:27 pm
Occupation: Planetary Scientist
Project Question: N/A
Project Due Date: N/A
Project Status: Not applicable

Re: Experimental Design and Data Table Chart

Post by tdaly »

Hi Sai08,

I'm sorry that it has taken so long for someone to reply to you! The independent variable is the thing you change; the dependent variable is the thing that responds to changes in the independent variable. You are right that your dependent variable is the number of stars counted. You are comparing a human counter vs. a computer counter, so your independent variable is how the stars are counted--human or computer. The data are information you gather to answer your question. Since you are comparing whether a human or computer counts stars "better" (how are you defining better?), then the data you collect will be the number of stars counted by each method.
All the best,
Terik
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