Julia
Cothron's Books
ARE THE BEST
in the BUSINESS! |
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Julia
Cothron's
Experimental Design
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Our state
requires a rigorous
teaching of the experimental design method, including independent and
dependent variables, research before experimenting, simple report
formats, etc. We use Julia Cothron's books,
which do
a beautiful job of
explaining the
entire program. We've developed many extra worksheets and materials to
teach each element within the program. Many are included in this
section.
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How
to Draw a
Personal Concept Map
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Relates to the
Freshman Science
Project. Personal Concept Map is a "warm-up" for the Science Concept
Map, which is a brainstorming activity for planning a science
experiment. Click here for PowerPoint. Click here for the accompanying
worksheet.
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How
to Draw a
Science Concept Map
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Relates to the
Freshman Science
Project. the Science concept Map is a brainstorming activity that helps
students begin to think about science experiment topics. Click here for
the PowerPoint.
Click here
for the accompanying worksheet.
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Experimental
Design Reference
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Our reference
packet for grades
9-12. A good reference for all aspects of experimental design. Our
students use this when writing a short-form report up to writing their
final science project report. Click here.
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Experimental
Design Project
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Within the first
week of our
semester-long block-style Earth Science class, we introduce the Freshman
Science Project. We include most
of the elements of Julia Cothron's
program, beginning with brainstorming for a good topic, researching,
running the experiment (at home), writing a report with analysis, and
presenting the findings to the class. Click here
for a synopsis of our Freshman
Experimental
Design Project.
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Writing
Titles
and Hypotheses Worksheet
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Works well to
practice each
element
separately. Click here
for a good titles/hypotheses practice.
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Evaluating
Experimental Designs
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Use Cothron's
Checklists, learn
to
find the errors in an experimental design. Helps students write better
designs.
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Experimental
Design Practice
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Gives four brief
scenarios.
Write
an experimental design for each. Students have to invent their own
levels, trials, and constants. Click here.
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Bar
or Line
Graph? Worksheet
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Give titles for
several
experiments
and ask students to figure out which graph to use for the data.
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Bar
or Line
Graph? Game
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Give each team
colorful BAR
GRAPH
and LINE GRAPH signs. Read an experimental title. Teams huddle to
figure out if the graph would be a line or bar graph. Team leader holds
up the answer.
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Experimental
Design Vocabulary
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A cut and paste
vocabulary
assignment. Cut out the definitions and past with the correct word.
Much more fun than the "standard" vocab sheet. The action of cutting
and pasting helps most students remember better! Click here.
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Experimental
Design Team Relay Games
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Prepare an
overhead transparency
with a long line down the middle. Put the same question, puzzle, or
problem on each side. Teams line up on each side of the overhead. Give
each team one transparency pen of a different color. The pen is passed
down the line like a relay race baton. First person in each line starts
at the signal and gets to write down one thing only. If you have
experimental designs that need correcting, for example, each student
can only make one correction. Then the pass the pen to the next person
in the line and go to the end of the line. It's totally "legal" for
team members to look at the other team's work. This often gets a team's
weakest member past their turn with some dignity. Good game for
requiring team members in line to pay attention to what is happening so
they know what to do next.
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Experimental
Design Tables & Graphs Practice
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We teach each
part of the
Experimental Design separately. Click here
for an example of a page that covers using checklists to evaluate and
properly construct tables and graphs.
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Writing
Conclusion Paragraphs
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A worksheet that
gives the graph
and results sentences from some "pretend" experiments. The students are
asked to write the first three conclusion sentences in paragraph form.
A checklist is included. I usually do the first two in pairs. Students
write the Conclusion on their own, then trade papers and use the
checklist to determine how well their partner did. The other two are
homework. Click here.
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Writing
Conclusion Paragraphs Game
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Read a results
sentence to the
teams. (I have four long-term teams set up to go at a moment's notice!)
Each team writes the conclusion sentences on a white board and waits to
raise their answer on teacher's request.
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Experimental
Design Puzzle
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Click here for a
cut-and-paste
review of the order of a Write Up. Have students cut out and paste the
two Labs on separate pieces of paper. They have to carefully read each
part of the puzzle to separate into the two labs.
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Experimental
Design Short Report Form
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The short form
is often used for
quick labs that are teaching something other than experimental design,
or for a beginning-of-the-year review of the basics of experimental
design. This form is used almost exclusively in our middle schools as
preparation for the longer reports at the high school level. Click here.
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Experimental
Design Normal Report Form
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This
normal-length report form
is
used for most labs. It requires a written procedure, which the short
form doesn't. It also gives prompts for the Conclusion. You can assign
only a few of these prompts for a particular lab. Click here.
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Experimental
Design Long Report Form
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This is the
longest form, not
necessarily used for the largest labs or projects. Often this form is
given to a special education student who needs more prompts. We've been
known to shorten the requirements for these students but use this
complete long form to start. I've also used this for students for a big
project, if I know they have trouble writing an extensive report. Click here.
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EXPERIMENT:
COIN
LAB
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A good lab
to review experimental design concepts. How many
water drops does each of four different-sized coins hold? Good way to
review independent variable (coin size) and dependent variable (# of
water drops) at the beginning of the year. I put our short form report
on the back and assign as homework early in the year. Then we learn to
evaluate using Cothron's checklists in the Reference packet.
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EXPERIMENT:
CUPS AND COINS LAB
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Another lab
similar to the Coin Lab on
the Science Teaching Ideas
Page. We've used
this to review the basic principles of experimental design either in
the beginning of the year or halfway through the year. Also we've used
this lab to teach the principles of Newton's Second Law. Click here.
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