Science Meets Real Life
Each and every day, you are faced with having to make split-second decisions, and the need to solve random problems that you encounter. As you have learned in Unit 1 and currently in Unit 2, in order to reach those decisions and work those problems out, you are subconsciously using the scientific method. In this Assignment, you will create a PowerPoint presentation to explain how you would use the scientific method to solve the following scenario.
Scenario: You have agreed to take care of your friend’s dog; Buddy, while she goes on a trip to Antarctica. On your two-hour trip to take your friend to the airport you get so caught up talking about her upcoming adventure that you do not have any time to ask questions about her new dog (Buddy) who is riding in the backseat. After you drop your friend off, just in time to catch her flight, you drive the two hours back home and realize that your friend accidently took the dog’s bag with when she ran into the airport. You realize that you do not have access to your friend’s house and cannot contact her. It is a new dog so there is no one else you can contact that knows its normal routine. You stop at the local pet store and ask the salesperson to help you pick out food and supplies to take care of Buddy for the next few weeks. They send you home with a bag of salmon and potato dry dog food, a few toys, and a dog bed. When you get home, you put some of the dog food in a plastic bowl that you had been using to store oranges and lemons. You offer this to Buddy, but he refuses to eat his dinner. This puts you in a little bit of a panic since your friend is on a long flight and will then be on a ship to Antarctica so contacting her will be difficult. You take a deep breath and decide that you can try to solve this problem on your own.
Prepare a PowerPoint presentation to show how you would apply each step of the scientific method to try to solve this problem using the proper terminology (hypothesis, experiment, etc.). Use a minimum of three references to provide factual support.
A template is provided to get you started. Additional slides should be added to address all the questions in this assignment and cite your sources. You are welcome to modify this template to suit your needs, being sure to meet the assignment requirements. Make sure your PowerPoint® presentation addresses the following questions.
- What are the steps of the scientific method? List them out and provide a short description in your own words of what happens during each step.
- To collect your data, read through the scenario carefully and on a slide provide a list of everything that you know about the situation with Buddy.
- Create a testable hypothesis for why Buddy is not eating that is consistent with the data in the scenario:e., Buddy is not eating because I did not buy the type of dog food that he is used to. Indicate which pieces of evidence you used to develop your hypothesis.
- Outline how you would set up an experiment to test the following hypothesis: Buddy is not eating because I did not buy the type of dog food that he is used to.
- Do some research on independent and dependent variables. Identify the independent and dependent variables in your experiment.
- List three things that you should keep constant (the same) during your experiment so that they don’t influence the outcome of your experiment.
- Identify what you would do if:
- The results of your experiment supported your hypothesis.
- The results of your experiment did not support your hypothesis.
- Explain what you would do in the following two situations:
- You know you can contact your friend at some point soon but only for a short time. What three testable questions would you want to ask her to help support or disprove the proposed hypothesis?
- Your neighbor comes over to help out with Buddy and poses the following hypothesis: Buddy won’t eat because he feels that his owner is unlucky when she travels and may get hurt. Is this a testable hypothesis? If so, please explain how you would test it. If not, please explain why it is not testable in the context of the scientific method.
Information provided on the slides should be brief and bulleted. In the notes section, you must include all of your talking points - exactly as you would present them to your audience. Remember, you want to tell the story during the presentation rather than having your audience reading your slides along with you during the entire presentation. The Writing Center has an excellent resource on Creating Effective PowerPoint Presentations.
Basic Presentation Expectations:
- Include a title slide and a reference slide.
- Use images (with citations) as appropriate to create an effective and professional presentation.
- On each slide include short descriptions and labels. Do not write out full paragraphs of information on each slide. 18 pt. font or larger recommended.
- Put your explanations and talking points that would be presented to the audience in a short paragraph in the notes section of each slide.
- Be free of industry jargon. Be mindful of your audience.
- Use APA style for all references and in-text citations where appropriate.
- Avoid plagiarism. Do not cut and paste directly from the source in the slides. Note: no more than 10% of your paper should be directly quoted from any outside source.
- Utilize a minimum of three reliable resources.
- Make certain that your presentation is free of grammar and spelling errors.
