HOW ARE YOU BEING A

SCIENTIST?
What do scientists and engineers do?
Directions:
A. Change color of text (no green) indicating the practice(s) that YOU
engaged in during this Learning Set.
B. Provide evidence from the Learning Set of HOW YOU have engaged in
the practice
C. Provide a narrative explaining the evidence. HOW does the evidence
demonstrate that YOU engaged in the practice?

1. Ask questions and define

problems
1. Did your group have any problems (mistakes, spills, etc.) during the tests? Describe
each one.
Our first trial we spilled after 5 drops, I think this is because we dropped the drops to fast and to
close to the edge.
2. Did all groups get results similar to yours?
There were only a few groups that got results similar to ours, this is because we all followed
slightly different procedures.
3. What did the distribution, or spread, of data on your line plot look like? What do you
think this says about how reliable your labs data is? Do you think the cookie company
will trust your results? The Results were inconsistent, and this shows we did not use the
same procedure every time. The cookie company would not trust us because our data was
spread all over which means it is not reliable.
4. Why do you think there are differences between the data from different groups?
I think there are differences because there was not one set procedure. For example some of the
groups might have had their pennies face up while others face down.
5. How might your procedure and problems you had relate to the differences?
Because we all did it different and if we all did it the same we would most likely have less
problems and our results would be more conclusive.
6. What could the class do to get more consistent results in this challenge?

We could all put the droplets on the penny tails up, or we could drop them from around the
same height.

This shows how we asked questions and defined problems because we had
to make sure we knew what was happening and make sure that we knew
what we had to do to make this work.

2.

Develop and use models

We used the penny to represent the cookie, and the water to represent the
cream.

3. Plan and carry out

investigations
Procedure:
1. Place a dry penny on top of FLAT towel, with the heads facing up
2. Fill the pipette with lukewarm water

3. Place droplets on the center of the penny 1 centimeter above the pennys
surface, while trying not to move the table the penny is on.
4. Record the number of drops the penny was able to hold before the water spilled over the
coins side.
Drew 2
Trial 1
34

Trial 2 Trial 3
28
32

Trial 4 Trial 5
37
26

4. Analyze and interpret data

5. Use math and computational
thinking
6. Construct explanations and
design solutions
In the last trial the class conducted we all used the same procedure. We reduced the
range of the amount of drops from 37 to 25. This is much better because it shows that our
results are much more reliable. The reason we had inconsistent results is for many reasons,
one of them being the placement of the pipet. Although the procedure said to hold it at 45
degrees nobody used a protractor to get an exact measurement. Another reason is that we
never used the same penny so they all had a different amount of oxidation. As one can see we
had consistent results although not an exact answer.
We had to explain why the procedure works and design a solution based on
the problems we saw.

7. Engage in argument from

evidence
We had to argue over our procedure and how to do it it better based on how
our trials went.

8. Obtain, evaluate, and

communicate information