Assignment:
Hypothesis formation
One of the key concepts in biological science is to formulate a tangible and interesting hypothesis. After this, good scientific methods should be followed. Here, I give some examples how to examine if a hypothesis is valid and good.
Assignment Question 1:
Read the scenario below and then analyze what is wrong with the hypothesis given.
Renee has noticed that a few of her friends have better eyesight than she does. She watches what they eat and then decides to come up with a hypothesis. Her hypothesis is as follows: My friends who eat tasty food for lunch have the best eyesight.
Assignment Question 2:
Read the scenario below and then write three of your own good hypotheses about what is going on. Be sure to keep in mind the two characteristics of a good hypothesis discussed above.
There are seven chickens in the farmyard. One morning, when you go out to feed them, you see only six. What might be occurring?
Assignment Question 3:
Read the story below and identify the variable, the control group, and the experimental group.
Crunch Inc. has decided to test out some new, no-salt potato chips. It hires 300 people and splits them into two groups that are mostly identical with regard to age, weight, height, gender, etc. The first group eats 2 ounces of regular potato chips and then completes a survey. The second group eats 2 ounces of the new, no-salt potato chips and completes the same survey.
Assignment Question 4: First, come up with a good hypothesis about how any two of these 10 characteristics might be related to one another. It doesn't matter if they really are related or not, what matters is that you use what you know about hypotheses to come up with a good one. Here is an example (do not use this hypothesis in your answer): As a person's shoe size increases, his/her pulse rate decreases or."The higher a person's shoe size, the slower his/her pulse rate."
Assignment Question 5: After you have your own hypothesis on how two of the characteristics relate to each other, take measurements from people you know. You'll need to collect data from at least five real people. You also can count yourself in the sample. Be sure to include the person's name next to the person's data, and put it into a table in your lab assignment. The table might look something like this:
person foot size pulse rate
Harold 28 cm 84 beats/min
Gena 20 cm 91 beats/min
Rita 18 cm 98 beats/min
Jerry 21 cm 107 beats/min