1 - Getting Started ~5 mins
Earlier in this project your group planned a heating or cooling fair test and ran the first trial. One reading can fool us. Why do scientists run a test more than once before they trust the answer?
2 - Why Repeats Matter ~5 mins
One ice-cube time can be a fluke (a one-off lucky or unlucky result that never shows up again), like an 8-minute melt that never happens twice. That is why we repeat.
Repeat means we run the same fair test again with everything kept the same. Evidence is what the numbers show, not what we hoped would happen.
If Trial 1 and Trial 2 disagree, what should a careful scientist do next?
3 - Repeat Our Fair Test ~20 mins
Run your fair test again. Follow these steps:
- First, open your Investigation Journal at the page where you planned this test and wrote your first trial reading.
- Then set up the same fair test: same thing changed, same thing measured, everything else kept the same. Use the measure or fixed observation window already written on your plan.
- Next, run Trial 2, and write the reading on your Investigation Journal page straight away, while the number is still exact in your head.
- Then reset everything fully so the start matches, run Trial 3, and write that reading down straight away too.
- Keep every raw reading on your Investigation Journal page for now. The tidy list, the trustworthy number and your conclusion come later, on a fresh page.
Later you will only use trials that share the same measure and the same window. If today's window is different from Trial 1, your trustworthy number comes from Trial 2 and Trial 3 only.
4 - Record Results and Decide ~10 mins
Watch this first. Three trial times that used the same measure: 8 minutes, 12 minutes and 11 minutes. Put them in order: 8, 11, 12. The middle value is 11. That is the number we trust more than any single trial.
Now open your Results and Conclusion page. Work through this checklist:
- First, copy across only the trial readings that used the same measure and the same window.
- Then write the middle value if you have three matching trials, or the pattern if you have two.
- Next, decide whether the prediction held, and write what the numbers show.
- Last, add one way you would improve the test next time.
Evaluate means deciding from the evidence whether the prediction held, and saying what you would improve. That is the last two things you write.
5 - Pool and Chart the Class Results ~7 mins
This is the exciting bit: every group's trustworthy number on one picture. Let's see what story the whole class tells.
We will put each group's number on the interactive activity. We only compare groups that measured the same thing in the same way. Ice-wrap groups and warm-cup groups (or different windows) go up as separate runs, announced before we type. Watch the bars grow. Which result stands out in this run? What does the chart let us see that one notebook page cannot?
Our heating and cooling middle values
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