| INTRODUCTION 
The Science
Laboratory Report is the way that a scientist communicates
to the public his/her findings. Even if a scientist
makes a great discovery, no one will know about it
or understand it if the lab write-up is not done correctly
and well-written. At CMS we follow a particular format
which is close to what most scientists use. The lab
parts are:
- PROBLEM - question we are trying to answer
- BACKGROUND INFORMATION - reading/collection of information
needed to do the lab
- HYPOTHESIS - a scientific guess suggested by the
Background Information; always used in an Experiment;
only used in an Investigation if there is enough information
to warrant a good, educated guess
- MATERIAL - a list of all supplies needed for the
lab
- PROCEDURE - a numbered list of what you will do;
should be detailed enough that someone could exactly
duplicate what you did
- DATA - a table and graph showing all your results
- CONCLUSION - a summary of what you were trying to
find out, what you did, what you found out, and what
it all means
There are
two kinds of science labs:
- The INVESTIGATION in which we are
trying to learn something new; an open-ended exercise
where you frequently don't know what you will find
out
- The EXPERIMENT - a very specific
focus on an aspect of a problem; also called a fair
test; an activity in which you change only
one variable (independent variable), while keeping
all others the same, to see how the change affects
another variable (the dependent variable)
These checklists and examples should help you proof-read
your labs to make sure they are complete. The checklists
pose questions that allow you to check your lab for completeness.
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