Our state requires a rigorous teaching of the experimental design method, including independent and dependent variables, research before experimenting, simple report formats, etc. We use Julia Cothron's books, which do a beautiful job of explaining the entire program. We've developed many extra worksheets and materials to teach each element within the program. Many are included in this section.

Click on either book image for more details on Cothron's books:

Relates to the Student Science Project. Personal Concept Map is a "warm-up" for the Science Concept Map, which is a brainstorming activity for planning a science experiment. Click here for PowerPoint. Click here for the accompanying worksheet.

Relates to the Student Science Project. the Science concept Map is a brainstorming activity that helps students begin to think about science experiment topics. Click here for the PowerPoint. Click here for the accompanying worksheet.

Our reference packet for grades 9-12. A good reference for all aspects of experimental design. Our students use this when writing a short-form report up to writing their final science project report. Click here.

Works well to practice each element separately. Click here for a good titles/hypotheses practice.

Gives four brief scenarios. Write an experimental design for each. Students have to invent their own levels, trials, and constants. Click here.

A cut and paste vocabulary assignment. Cut out the definitions and past with the correct word. Much more fun than the "standard" vocab sheet. The action of cutting and pasting helps most students remember better! Click here.

I recommend teaching each part of the Experimental Design separately. Click here for an example of a page that covers using checklists to evaluate and properly construct tables and graphs.

A worksheet that gives the graph and results sentences from some "pretend" experiments. The students are asked to write the first three conclusion sentences in paragraph form. A checklist is included. I usually do the first two in pairs. Students write the Conclusion on their own, then trade papers and use the checklist to determine how well their partner did. The other two are homework. Click here.

The short form is often used for quick labs that are teaching something other than experimental design, or for a beginning-of-the-year review of the basics of experimental design. This form is used almost exclusively in our middle schools as preparation for the longer reports at the high school level. Click here.

This normal-length report form is used for most labs. It requires a written procedure, which the short form doesn't. It also gives prompts for the Conclusion. You can assign only a few of these prompts for a particular lab. Click here.

This is the longest form, not necessarily used for the largest labs or projects. Often this form is given to a special education student who needs more prompts. We've been known to shorten the requirements for these students but use this complete long form to start. I've also used this for students for a big project, if I know they have trouble writing an extensive report. Click here.

EXPERIMENT: COIN LAB 

A good lab to review experimental design concepts. How many water drops does each of four different-sized coins hold? Good way to review independent variable (coin size) and dependent variable (# of water drops) at the beginning of the year. I put our short form report on the back and assign as homework early in the year. Then we learn to evaluate using Cothron's checklists in the Reference packet.

Another lab similar to the Coin Lab on the Science Teaching Ideas Page. We've used this to review the basic principles of experimental design either in the beginning of the year or halfway through the year. Also we've used this lab to teach the principles of Newton's Second Law. Click here.