Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hello, I am conducting this science fair project. I am to the end of the testing, and as I go to analyze my data I can not determine a clear set outcome. Can someone please provide me with what the results from their previous experiment or what the expected outcome is supposed to be! Thanks in advance!!

Hi Rachel,

Please keep ALL your posts in one thread asking the same question in multiple posts only causes difficulty for people trying to read all of them together.

Your data are your results and must be reported that way. Scientists publish their experiments and other scientists study them and try to repeat them. If the data are reproducible then others can do additional experiments to build on their work. That's how science progresses.

You should take your data and put it into a table or graph. Sometimes when you see it that way there is a pattern that was not obvious before. Also, you should have repeated readings and experiments at least three times in order to get a statistical average. This helps to eliminate errors in measuring.

Think carefully about how you did the experiments. If you think the data is off, maybe you can identify where there might have been some problems in making the readings. Troubleshooting an experiment is a really important part of science and explaining to others how to perform the procedure better helps them in their work.

Post again with some specific details and we can try to help smooth out your results.

Sybee