CHAPTER

A2 Scientific Inquiry

Learning outcomes:

You will learn to:

• To recognise and use a variety of scientific inquiry skills and processes

• To develop attitudes required in scientific inquiry

• To state some limitations of science and technology in solving problems

• To plan and carry out scientific investigations

• To analyse problems and think of novel solutions for them

• To draw charts and graphs to display graphical data

• To value individual effort and working in a team as part of scientific inquiry

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A2 Scientific Inquiry

Before you begin, write down

some questions about what you

want to find out in this chapter.

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A2 Scientific Inquiry

Finding out in science

• How do we find out new things? By:
– Reading books;
– Conducting experiments;
– Observing phenomenon in everyday life

• Can you think of other ways of finding out new

knowledge?
– From the media e.g. surfing the internet;
– Checking with friends or experts etc.
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Skills for doing experiments

• Posing questions

• Observing

• Measuring

• Communicating

• Inferring (including predicting and drawing conclusion)

• Making models

• Formulating and testing hypotheses

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A2 Scientific Inquiry

Other skills

• Classifying and sequencing

• Defining, controlling, and manipulating variable in

experimentation

• Interpreting, analysing, and evaluating data

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A2 Scientific Inquiry

Use of skills
• To carry out complex tasks, called processes (or
methods), such as:
– Planning and carrying out investigations
– Formulating and testing hypotheses
– Creative problem solving
– Using charts and graphs

• What you get: Products of science

– Knowledge scientists gain from their discoveries
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A2 Scientific Inquiry

Products of Science
• Laws: Important patterns that are always
observed and accepted by all scientists;
describe statements of relationships between
observable phenomena [Lederman et al., 2002]

• Theories: well-established, highly substantiated,

internally consistent systems of explanations
[Suppe, 1977]
Note: Theories and laws are different kinds of knowledge and one does not
become the other.
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A2 Scientific Inquiry

Posing questions
• Posing questions is usually the starting point of
science.
• Many questions begin with these six words:
– Why?
– What?
– Where?
– Which?
– When?
– How?
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A2 Scientific Inquiry

Posing questions

Look at some objects in your

classroom or outside in the school
grounds. Ask at least six questions
about each of them.
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A2 Scientific Inquiry

This could be a brainstorming activity. Do not worry too much

about the quality of the questions at this stage. One object
could be a (filament) light bulb. Possible questions are:
• How is the light bulb made?
• What is light?
• Where does the electricity come from?
• What kind of wire is used as the filament?
• Why does the bulb get hot?
• Why does the filament not melt?
• Why do bulbs often ‘blow’?
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A2 Scientific Inquiry

Observing
• Helps us to collect information about the world around us

• Requires the use of all 5 senses:

– Sight
– Hearing
– Smell
– Taste
– Touch

• Observing can be followed by patterns searching

• However, our senses can be limited, unreliable and subjective.

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A2 Scientific Inquiry

Examples of limited senses

• Measuring the temperature of water with our sense
of touch

• Measuring the depth of a swimming pool using our

sense of sight

• Measuring the loudness of sound coming from our

television set
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A2 Scientific Inquiry

Measuring

Measuring To measure Picture

instrument

Ruler Length

Vernier calipers Length

Micrometer Length
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A2 Scientific Inquiry

Measuring

Measuring
To measure Picture
instrument

Measuring tape Length

Thermometer Temperature

Stopwatch Time
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A2 Scientific Inquiry
Other common measuring instruments

Measuring To measure Picture

instrument

Beam balance Mass

Weighing scale Weight

Measuring Volume
cylinder
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A2 Scientific Inquiry
Other common measuring instruments

Measuring To measure Picture

instrument

pH meter pH

Ammeter Current

Voltmeter Voltage
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A2 Scientific Inquiry

Drag and drop the instrument used to

measure the stated quantity.
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A2 Scientific Inquiry

Communicating
• Modes of communication:
– Talking
– Listening
– Writing

• Purposes of communication:
– Share ideas
– Learn from others
– Build on others’ ideas
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Different ways of communication

• Writing sentences about what we observe

• Drawing diagrams of what we see

• Using tables, graphs or charts to record and present our

observations

• For a project, we may keep a diary

• Tapes and photographs are also ways to record our

observations
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A2 Scientific Inquiry

Inferring
• Inference: something new that we have to work out from
information (observations and measurements) that is given

• Observation ≠ Inference

• Example:
Observation: We see a shadow
Inference: The sun is shining;
It is daytime.
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A2 Scientific Inquiry

Observing a space creature

• Imagine that a spaceship stopped on a planet in outer
space. While the astronauts explored the planet, they
observed a strange organism. In their report, they wrote
several statements about the creature.

• Tell whether each statement is an inference or an

observation.

• Remember:
– An observation Is something you sense: taste, touch, smell,
see, or hear
– An inference is something you decide or think regarding an
event after you observe it
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Observation or inference?
1. The organism frowned to show it did not like strangers.
2. The organism is green with brown spots.
3. The organism lives near other organisms.
4. The organism moved away from us because it was scared.
5. The organism made gurgling noises.
6. The organism had four toes on each foot and they were webbed.
7. The organisms has one blue eye and two green eyes.
8. The planet must be hot because the organism was sweating.
9. The organism moves slowly because of old age.
10. The organism likes yellow plants because it was holding them.

[Taken from http://www.lincoln.smmusd.org/staff/Vanerveen_Web/scientificmethod/inference_vs…]Obe

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Observation or inference???
Is this statement an observation or inference? Classify it by dragging each
statement to the correct box.
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A2 Scientific Inquiry

About inferences
• Different inferences can be made from the same
observation or measurement;

• They may turn out to be wrong;

• Examples of inference:
– Prediction: saying what will happen in the future
– Conclusion: interpretation of data to answer the question
being investigated
– Hypothesis: a smart guess
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Implications
• Conclusion or prediction made by scientists may turn out to be
wrong;

• Different scientists may come up with different conclusions from

the same data;

• Scientific claims may change as new evidence is presented

• Scientific knowledge, although reliable and durable, cannot be

absolutely proven.
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A2 Scientific Inquiry

Making models
• Model:
– A picture, diagram or anything that helps us understand
things that are too small to be seen, or too large or too
complicated to be studied easily
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A2 Scientific Inquiry

Inferring
Look again at the picture of the sundial in Fig. A2.6.
1. Write some observations you can make.
2. Write down some inferences from these observations.

1. Observations: The sundial is a metal plate with marks on

it. There is a shadow passing across the sundial.
2. Inferences: It is daytime. The Sun is
shining. It is not raining. Somebody
photographed the sundial. The time
is about 2 p.m.
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1. Observations: The sundial is a metal plate with

marks on it. There is a shadow passing across
the sundial.

2. Inferences: It is daytime. The Sun is shining. It is

not raining. Somebody photographed the sundial.
The time is about 2 p.m.
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Inferring, predicting
Use the line graph in Fig. A2.19 to
answer the following questions.
1. What was the temperature after 5.5
minutes?
2. Approximately how long did it take
for the temperature to reach 70°C?
3. How long did it take for the
temperature to rise from
30°C to 60°C?

1. About 65°C.
2. 6 minutes.
3. About 3.5 minutes.
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Formulating and testing hypothesis

• Hypothesis: a smart guess made to explain observations

• Example:
– Observation: steel paper clips are magnetic, that is, they are
attracted by a magnet
– Hypothesis: “Things made of metal are magnetic”
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A common scientific method

Make a prediction
Formulate a hypothesis
from the hypothesis
from observation

Make preliminary observation Do an experiment

or measurement to test the prediction
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Myth of scientific method

• There are many methods of doing science.

• Not all scientists follow the 4 steps.

• The same steps may not be always be followed in

that order shown in the previous slide.

• There is no recipe-like stepwise procedure that all

scientists follow when they do science.
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Attitudes needed in the study of science

Attitude Meaning

Curiosity Wanting to explore and find out

Open-mindedness Being willing to accept new ideas, but at the

(and scepticism) same time not believing that all you read or
find out is true or correct

Humility Not being too proud of what you have

discovered; a willingness to say “I am wrong”
and to change your ideas when new evidence
is presented
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Attitudes needed in the study of science

Attitude Meaning

Creativity The attitude of looking for new ways to

solve problems
Being fair and not letting opinions or
Objectivity
beliefs affect your work

Integrity Being honest and not changing the

results of experiments
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Attitudes needed in the study of science

Attitude Meaning

Perseverance Working on a problem until a solution

is found

Responsibility Showing care and concern for living

things and the environment
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Examples of scientific misconduct

• Fabrication: publish deliberately false or misleading
research

• Plagiarism: take credit for the work of another

• Violation of ethical standards regarding human and

animal experiments

[From wikipedia]
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Case Study – Scientific Misconduct

• Hwang Woo-Suk, a South Korean biomedical scientist

• Fraudulently reported to have succeeded in creating human

embryonic stem cells by cloning in the journal Science
in 2004 & 2005

• Both papers have been retracted after being found to contain a

large amount of fabricated data

• Dismissed from Seoul National University in 2006

• Can you identify the attitudes that this scientist lack?

[From wikipedia]
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Science Processes
1. Planning and carring out scientific investigations
2. Creative problem solving
3. Using charts and graphs
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Planning and carrying out scientific

investigations
• Planning
– Decide what apparatus to use
– What observations or measurements to make (and
how to make them)
– How to conduct a fair test:
• Change only variable that we are measuring
• All other variables remain unchanged
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What planning and carrying out scientific investigations
involved…
Purpose Question or hypothesis

a) Deciding what observations to make

Think about how to do the
experiment b) Making the experiment a fair test
c) Deciding what apparatus to use

Method Choose the best method and describe how the

experiment is to be done

Results Choose a suitable way to communicate the observations

and measurements

Conclusion Draw conclusion from the results

a) Did anything go wrong in the investigation

Evaluation
b) How can I improve it if I do it again?
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Example
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Language used in laboratory reports

• Observe the language used for describing the different
steps of the scientific investigation in the previous slide

• What are some features of the language used in each

stage?

• Are there any differences between the stages?

• If so, what are they?

• Discuss the reasons or purposes for these differences

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Creative problem solving

• Before planning an experiment, a scientist must ask
‘What is the problem’?

• A problem is a statement or question to be solved or

answered, especially for something difficult.

• As scientists often ask difficult questions about things,

creative problem solving is needed.
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Steps involved in creative problem solving
1. What is the problem?

2. What ideas are there to solve

the problem?

No
3. Choose a solution that
seems to be the best.

4. Try out the solution.

5. Interpret the results.

Did it work?
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A2 Scientific Inquiry

Examples of where creative problem solving

is needed
• When we are planning a scientific investigation

• When we are designing a device such as a machine

or a piece of apparatus (e.g. for taking
measurements or collecting data)

• When we are thinking of a scheme or a plan to

overcome a problem
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Using charts and graphs in science

• Purpose of charts and graphs:
– Recording our observations and measurements
– Give a clearer picture of the results than numbers in a table
– Facilitate the identification of patterns

• Examples:
– Pie charts
– Bar charts
– Line graphs
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Pie Charts

Suitable for:
• Showing relative proportions

Note: The full pie chart represents the whole class (100%).
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A2 Scientific Inquiry

Bar Charts

Suitable for:
• Showing distribution of non-
continuous data
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A2 Scientific Inquiry
Line Graphs

Suitable for:
• Showing trend of continuous
data
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A2 Scientific Inquiry

Inferences that can be drawn from line graph

shown
• The initial temperature of the water

• The temperature at any time during heating

• The likely temperature of the water beyond the actual time of

heating

• Time taken for the temperature to reach a certain temperature

• The pattern of change of temperature with the amount of time

the water is heated
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Summary
• Scientific inquiry involves:
– Attitudes: curiosity, humility, objectivity, perseverance,
responsibility

– Processes: planning and carrying out investigations, creative

problem solving, using charts and graphs

– Skills: posing questions, observing, measuring,

communicating results, inferring, making models, formulating
hypothesis

– Products: all knowledge gained in science