Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

My daughter completed her science fair project about blood types and examined blood under a microscope. She is a little confused about the variables.

Question 1
Can you predict the blood type of a child if you know the blood type of the parents?
Are the variables
Independent - parents’ blood type
Dependent - children’s blood type

Question 2
If you look at blood from different people under the microscope can you see a difference?
Independent variable - Different people
Dependent- visible difference in blood type while viewed under a microscope

I wasn’t sure if she had this correct, and I wanted to check.

Thank you,
Hope

Hi Hope,

Yes, for those specific questions, I would say those are the correct independent and dependent variables!

Hello,

Here is a webpage that provides the definitions of the different variables that may help you to figure out if you have named your variables correctly: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... /variables

A good rule of thumb is to remember that the independent variable is what you are changing and the dependent variable is the change you observe (as a result of changing the independent variable).

Hope this helps!
-cnoonan180