Water and minerals
taken up by tree roots
• General Stages of Scientific Investigation
1. Asking a Question
2. Collecting Information/Making
3. Inferring and forming a hypothesis
4. Designing a controlled experiment to test
5. Collecting/Analyzing Data (qualitative vs.
6. Drawing Conclusions
Inference and imagination can lead to a hypothesis.
If artificial king snakes are placed in an environment
without coral snakes, then they will be attacked more
frequently than the artificial brown snakes.
Variables – factors that change
Independent – you manipulate (what you
Dependent – change in response to the
independent variable (variable that is measured)
Control Group – used for comparison
Nothing is changed
The graph below shows
the results of an
experiment in which mice
learned to run through a
1. State the hypothesis
that you think this
2. Identify the variables
and control group.
3. What variables that
must have been kept
constant so as not to
affect the results
4. Looking at the data
collected, does it
support the hypothesis?