Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

So we're just learning about Independent and Dependent variables, controls, and constants and all that. For my science project, I'm testing whether cats react differently or the same to local or foreign bird calls. I've determined my IV is the bird calls, my DV is the house cats' reactions, and my control is that I'm doing it at dusk, because that's when cats are most active. But I'm having trouble deciding the constant.

Thanks for the help!

Hi Raegan_nicole,

In my experience, controlled variables are things that you host constant (unchanged) throughout your experiment. For the experiment you are doing, the time of day sounds like a very appropriate controlled variable. Could you explain a bit more about what you mean by "constants" and how those would be different from controlled variables?

Raegan_nicole wrote:So we're just learning about Independent and Dependent variables, controls, and constants and all that. For my science project, I'm testing whether cats react differently or the same to local or foreign bird calls. I've determined my IV is the bird calls, my DV is the house cats' reactions, and my control is that I'm doing it at dusk, because that's when cats are most active. But I'm having trouble deciding the constant.

Thanks for the help!

I agree with tdaly that the control you selected, the time of day, is a good constant.

Here's some more information on how the control you selected is the constant.
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... bles.shtml

All the best
MrsDez