BB GUN SAFETY

[RABESTERFAM]

I need help formulating a better hypothesis. My project is on bb gun safety and how bb's penetrate through different objects. We shot different materials (pop cans, empty box, plastic and ballistic gel to represent human soft tissue). My controlled elements were the distance I shot them at and the bb itself, the variables were the items. I originally thought that bbs would penetrate through certain items over others, but I need a better hypothesis. We've done a lot fo the project, but I think I need to regroup. Any ideas on a better way to have a hypothesis on this matter. report is due in a couple of days.

[amyC]

Hi RABESTERFAM: It sounds like you've already done most of your trials and testing, and you did that based on the hypothesis you set up at the beginning. That's the right order of events for the scientific method! You may not have gotten the results you "thought" you would get, but that does sometimes happen. If you had time, you might take what you learned, formulate a new hypothesis, and then test again. (One element that could be changed would be the distance from which you were shooting, for example.) But if time is short, and I see your report is due soon, you can write up your report and explain what you thought would happen and then what did happen.

We recently posted some information about writing a strong hypothesis on the Science Buddies blog. You might want to check out this post: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/blog/201 ... thesis.php (There are links within that article to Science Buddies' resources on hypotheses as well.)

Amy
Science Buddies

[RABESTERFAM]

The Hypothesis statement was: I think that the BB would go through the empty pop can, empty cardboard box, empty yogurt container and the ballistics gel, but not a full pop can. Do you think this is too complicated or can it be simplified?

[amyC]

Again, you need to retain your original hypothesis since that is what you based your project and tests on.

But I talked with one of our scientists here at Science Buddies, and she said that you could refine the wording of your statement a bit to give it more specificity.

If you looked at the blog post I suggested or at the Science Buddies information on writing a hypothesis, you saw the following format:

If I do this... this will happen.

Based on the hypothesis you've outlined, you might reword it a bit to use this format and to make it more specific. In terms of specifics, you would note in the statement what type of BB you are shooting and front what distance.

Does that help?

Amy
Science Buddies

[RABESTERFAM]

yes. And thank you!!

[amyC]

You are welcome. Good luck with the report!

Amy
Science Buddies