9th Grade Science

Exercise: Scientific Method

Students (3): _________________________________________ Date: _____________________

A farmer in 1947 wanted to increase the amount of corn (the “yield” of

corn expressed in “bushels” per hectare) his farm produced. His family is
supported only by sales of corn at the end of the season. He had heard of new
fertilizers that had become available after the war and he wondered if he
should use a commercial nitrogen fertilizer to increase the yield. At the time,
he didn’t use any fertilizer on his corn crops. Almost nobody did. The new
nitrogen fertilizer is expensive so the decision to use it or not is important to
him and his family. Furthermore, he didn’t know exactly how much to use for
the best results. How can the farmer use the scientific method to decide if the
fertilizer will increase his corn yield, and if works at all, what is the best amount
to use per hectare?

1. What is the first thing he should do to begin to answer the question?

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2. State a clear HYPOTHESIS that the farmer might use to answer his question.
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3. The farmer will, of course, have to design an EXPERIMENT. He has 4 small corn fields on his farm he can use for
the experiment.
a. State, in detail, what the farmer might do to test his hypothesis.
i. What is the ONE THING that the farmer must change (the independent variable)?
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ii. What are the test groups?

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iii. The scientific method requires that the results of the experiment be MEASURED. What should
the farmer measure (the dependent variable) in this case?
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 iv. What are examples of the many things that must remain the same (constants) in his test
groups?
1. ______________________________________________________________
2. ______________________________________________________________
3. ______________________________________________________________
4. ______________________________________________________________

4. How should he collect and analyze the results of his measurements?

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a. Draw a table that would show the results of the experiment in a meaningful way. Obviously, you don’t
have any data, so don’t put any numbers in your table.

5. How will he know with confidence that his hypothesis is FALSE or if the results of the experiment match the
prediction in his hypothesis?
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6. What should he do if the experiment shows that his prediction was false?
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