SCIENCE

Science Meets Real Life



Science Meets Real Life

PART I: SCIENTIFIC METHOD

Scenario 1: You arrive home late at night. You walk up to the front door, unlock it, and reach in to turn on the light switch located just inside the front door. The light is not working! Now what?

When I arrive home late at night and turns on the light with the help of the switch, which is located just inside the front door. However, I realized that the light is not working. It will solve with the help of five steps of scientific method that are explained below:

Step 1: As the first step is to observe, this completes when I observed that the light does not work.

Step 2: Next, I will ask myself that why the light is not working. It completes the second step of the method that is to ask a question.

Step 3: With what I already know about lights, I might consider that the lights has fused, this completes the next step that is to form a hypothesis.

Step 4: I will try to replace the light with new light or another light in the room with the hope that the new light will work (a prediction and step four completes).

Step 5: To test my prediction, I may replace it with another light in the room or a new light, which is kept in my store as an inventory. Then, I will switch the light on, and the fifth step will be completed. The light works now with the replacement of new light.

Scenario 2: Develop your own detailed problem/observation and apply the scientific method to solve.

As I am a mother and I usually go to the butcher shop for purchasing meat and other groceries of home, I always observe that there are flies around the carcasses at the butcher shop.

Step 1: I always observed flies around the carcasses at the butcher shops.

Step 2: As a registered nurse, I used to think that where do the flies come from at the butcher shop? Does rotting meat turn into or produce the flies?

Step 3: The hypothesis of the observed situation is that rotten meat does not turn into flies and only flies can turn into more flies.

Step 4: I think that the meat cannot turn into more flies and that rotting meat in a sealed (fly-proof) container should not produce more flies. I conducted an experiment to see that whether predicted result is right or not. I took three jars and placed a piece of meat in all three of them. These jars were set out without lids so that the meat was exposed to the same situation as in the butcher shop. However, one of the jars was sealed with lid. I recorded the presence of flies in each jar. They were also entering into the jars. However, the jar that was covered with lid was not having any fly in it.

Step 5: I concluded that only flies were making more ...