Chapter 1: What Is Science Flashcards
What is observing?
Observing means using one or more of your senses to gather information. It also means using tools such as a microscope to help your senses.
What is science?
Science is a way of learning about the natural world.
What is inferring?
Explaining or interpreting the things you observe.
What is predicting?
Predicting means making a statement or claim about what will happen in the future based on past evidence or experience.
What is classifying?
Classifying is the grouping together of items that are alike in some way.
What is evaluating?
Evaluating involves comparing observations and data to reach a conclusion about them.
What is making models?
Making models involves creating representations of complex objects or processes.
What are variables?
Factors that can change in an experiment.
What is an independent variable?
A factor that is changed to test a hypothesis.
What is a dependent variable?
A factor that changes in response to the Independent variable.
What is quantitative?
Taking observations about numbers.
What is qualitative?
Making observations about things other than numbers.
What is an attitude that drive scientists?
Curiosity.
What is honesty?
Honesty is what good scientists do like always reporting your observations and results truthfully.
What is creativity?
Coming up with inventive ways to solve problems or produce new things.
What is skepticism?
Having an attitude of doubt.
What is ethics?
Something that refers to the rules that enable people to know right from wrong.
What is personal bias?
A person’s likes and dislikes.
What is cultural bias?
An opinion that comes from how you were brought up.
What is experimental bias?
A mistake in the design of an experiment that makes a particular result more likely.
What is objective reasoning?
Objective reasoning means that you make decisions and draw conclusions based on available evidence.
What is subjective?
Personal feelings have entered into a decision or conclusion.
what is deductive reasoning?
Explaining things by starting with a general idea and then applying the idea to a specific observation.
What is inductive reasoning?
Using specific observations to make generalizations.
What is the metric system?
A measurement system based on the number 10.
What is the international system of units or SI?
The standard system of measurement that allows scientists to compare data and communicate with each other about the results.
What is mass?
Mass is a measure of the amount of matter in an object.
What is weight?
A measure of force of the force gravity acting on an object.
What is volume?
The amount of space and object or that the substance takes up.
What is a meniscus?
The curve at the top of the liquid.
What is density?
A measure of how much mass is contained in a given volume.
What is an estimate?
An approximation of a number based on reasonable assumptions.
What is accuracy?
Accuracy refers to how close a measurement is to the true or excepted value.
What is precision?
Precision refers to how close a group of measurements are to each other.
What is the percent error?
Percent error calculations are a way to determine how accurate an experimental value is.
What is the mean?
Is the numerical average of a set of data.
What is the median?
The median is the middle number in a set of data.
What is mode?
The mode is the number that appears most often in a list of numbers.
What is the range?
The range of a set of data is the difference between the greatest value and the least value in the set.
What is anomalous data?
Anomalous data is data that does not fit with the rest of its data set.
What is a graph?
A graph is a picture of your data.
What is a linear graph?
A linear graph is a line graph in which the data points yields a straight line.
What is a nonlinear graph?
The kind of graph in which the data points do not fall along a straight line.
What is the scientific inquiry?
Scientific inquiry refers to the diverse ways in which scientists study the natural world and propose explanations based on the evidence they gather.
What is a hypothesis?
A hypothesis is a possible answer to a scientific question.
What is a controlled experiment?
And experiment in which only one variable is manipulated at a time.
What is data?
Are the facts figures and other evidence gathered through qualitative and quantitative observations.
What is repetition?
Repeating your experiment more than once.
What is replication?
When another scientist repeats your experiment to get the same results.
