Sunday, February 2, 2014

Experiment Design: Evaluation

You just designed an experiment. Now, after testing that design, it's time to reflect on your decisions and recommend ways that your experiment could be improved.

Even the most professional, controlled experiments will still have room to grow.

The scientists at CERN in Switzerland work tirelessly to improve their giant experiment. With each adjustment they hope to collect even more precise data to help us understand the origins of our universe. This is an ongoing process that requires effective daily reflection, evaluation and communication between scientists.

In your evaluation you will reflect on your experiment and communicate the ideas to your audience.  
Scientists working on the LHC at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland
The goals of your evaluation includes:
  1. Explain the materials and/or procedure that was/were effective ways to collect data.
  2. Explain improvements in materials used and/or procedure the procedure you chose. This is also a good time to explain human error in data collection and suggest ways this human error could be avoided if you did the experiment again.
  3. Suggest extensions or new experiments that could be done to explore the same testable question.
***Try to think of more than one improvement for your experiment. The more improvements you suggest, the deeper thinking you are showing about your experiment. 

Check out an example of an evaluation from a lab report of Emma

No comments: