Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hello
I am a 8th Grader doing a project on the affect of temperature on crystal growth using borax. I could use a little help getting pointed in the right direction. Oh and my project is due November 5 2012. thx (especially hypothesises and my question)

Have you read https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p082.shtml?
This is one of the Science Buddies Project ideas that involves growing borax crystals.
The Science Buddies site has some materials describing the Scientific Method here https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... thod.shtml and here https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ificmethod

The project ideas are intentionally general so that many different hypothesis related to the project idea can be constructed and tested.
You are the one that is going to be doing the investigation so you get to come up with the hypothesis you want to test!

If "assumption", then "result" forms of Hypothesis aren't the safest gramatical form to use. What happens if the assumption turns out to not a valid? The hypothesis is untestable! Anything you put in an "if" or "when" better be TRUE and the easiest way to insure they are true is to make them the initial starting conditions that you actually use in the test proceedure you come up with to test the hypothesis. You can often reword an if/when/then hypothesis to eliminate the conditional prepositions and adverbs. What you want for a hypothesis is a simple and testable statement that you don't really know if it is true or false that you are interested in testing to determine if it is true, false, or you can't tell/determine based on your testing.

Hi ScienceBud5,

Craig gave you some really good tips! I just want to add something about how you can "reword an if/when/then hypothesis to eliminate the conditional prepositions and adverbs." Instead of using the conventional "If __, then __" form, you could say, "It was hypothesized that [this is where you put what you thought would happen during your experiment] under the conditions that [this part is equivalent to the "if" clause]." You might also squeeze your reasoning into that sentence if it's not already too long, but the main goal is to make clear for your audience (teacher, classmates, judges, etc.) the ideas and underlying logic for the project.