Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

When writing the conclusion, can you use information from your research. For instance, if our batch of muffins containing the most baking powder flopped/sunk, can we say this happened because too much b.powder causes too many bubbles to form and they run together and pop at the top, leaving the muffin to sink? The experiment investigated how much b. powder was necessary to make muffins rise. After stating the obvious results, can we make this inference that the batch with the most b powder sunk because of this reason (which we learned is possible in pre-experiment research). Thank you

Yes! you should absolutely use all the information you gathered, including from your background research. This is what we mean by "new research builds on past research" - we take what we already know (from your background), add our new research to it and formulate conclusions.

A little more on conclusions here:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ions.shtml

Sounds like your experiment went well. Let me know if you need any additional help

Tonya

Hello there,

Yes! I agree with Tonya that in addition to writing up about whether the results from your experiment were what you expected from your hypothesis, you should definitely write about any other interesting observations that you may have noticed. If you are going to make an inference about why having too much baking powder would cause your muffins to sink, I would also provide some reasoning as to why you think this is so, and whether there have been previous studies that hint that what you proposed is a reasonable explanation. It would also be great to write about aspects of your experiments that didn't work (if any) and speculate as to why it didn't work, and what you could do next time to fix that.

Hope that helped! Let us know if you have anymore questions. Sounds like your experiment went well though, which is awesome!

Best,
Connie

Isolated conclusion from a report on mapping magnetic fields

Background information:

Initial hypothesis: Magnetic field strength will be proportional to the strength of the current running through a straight wire and inversely proportional to the distance from the wire.

Here is an example Conclusion Paragraph:


The data collected correlated strongly to the hypotheses, albeit with percent errors reaching as high as 20% [uncalibrated]. (Other sections of this report detailing this information have been removed from this example.)

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The trends in the data support the hypotheses that the strength of a magnetic field was proportional to the current running through a straight wire and inversely proportional to the distance from the wire. However, the significant percent error may indicate mechanical error, which must be accounted for in future experiments.

The accuracy of the results could be improved with better equipment. Instruments capable of measuring the strength of the magnetic field to a more precise number would likely result in a more accurate slope and therefore a smaller percent error. Similarly, although the probe was zeroed between all measurements, there is a chance that magnetic fields generated by electronics in the room might have affected the measurements taken. In the future, the experiment would need to be more isolated to generate better results.

The use of voltage and current in this experiment compels the experimenter to question whether a resistor would behave in the same manner a straight wire does in this setting, or whether the presence of a resistor further up in the circuit might change the magnetic field in any way. Experimentation with a resistor in the circuit would be necessary to determine this.


DID THIS HELP? PLEASE LET ME KNOW!