TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Wet Pennies
Students conduct a simple test to determine how many drops of each of three liquids can be placed on a penny before spilling over. The three liquids are water, rubbing alcohol, and vegetable oil; because of their different surface...
McGraw Hill
Glencoe Publishing: Practicing Scientific Processes
This site from Glencoe Publishing not only explains hypothesis but also tells how to design an experiment to test your hypothesis. Includes the difficult task of "Separating and controlling variables."
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Investigating Calculating the Effect of Mass, Length and Displacement
For this physics lab activity students investigate how mass, length and angular displacement affect the period of a simple pendulum. Students control variables, testing one variable at a time, using manual techniques (stopwatch, human...
American Chemical Society
Middle School Chemistry: Lesson Plans: Does Temperature Affect Dissolving?
Students identify and control variables to design an experiment to see whether the temperature of a solvent affects the speed at which a solute dissolves.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Obi Wan Adobe: Engineering for Strength
Students conduct an experiment to determine how varying the composition of a construction material affects its strength. They make several adobe bricks with differing percentages of sand, soil, fibrous material and water. They test the...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Gears: Determining Angular Velocity
Students work as engineers and learn to conduct controlled experiments by changing one experimental variable at a time to study its effect on the experiment outcome. Specifically, they conduct experiments to determine the angular...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Wide World of Gears
In an interactive and game-like manner, students learn about the mechanical advantage that is offered by gears. By virtue of the activity's mechatronics presentation, students learn to study a mechanical system as a dynamic system under...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Viscosity: The Flow of Milk
Students study the physical properties of different fluids and investigate the relationship between the viscosities of liquid and how fast they flow through a confined area. Student groups conduct a brief experiment in which they...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Trebuchet Launch
Students work as engineers to design and test trebuchets (in this case LEGO MINDSTORMS robots) that can launch objects. During the testing stage, they change one variable at a time to study its effect on the outcome of their designs....
NOAA
Noaa: Stressed Out! [Pdf]
In this activity, students investigate factors that affect the health of the oceans. These include overfishing, the destruction of habitats, the invasion of foreign species, the impact of pollution, and the increasing acidification. An...
American Chemical Society
Middle School Chemistry: Lesson Plans: Can Liquids Dissolve in Water?
Lesson plan with mulitmedia links in which students identify and control variables to help design a solubility test for different liquids in water.
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Investigating Motion: Calculating and Graphing Students Walking Speed
In this activity students will collect and analyze data of their walking speed. They will compare their speed to an outside speed walker. They will determine their speed every 20 meters up to 100 meters. They will complete five trials to...
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Physiology Monitoring and Cycles Lab With Report
Using physiology monitoring, students will understand how to collect data using scientific methods in this activity. Students will also learn how to communicate the finding in a lab report. Physiology monitoring will include measuring...
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Investigating an Inquiry Approach to Germination Growth in Plants
In this lab, students investigate the effects of a variable on the germination of a small plant. They will compare the growth of their variable to a control then write a lab report to report their findings.
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: How to Grow the Tallest Plant
In this lab activity students design an experiment controlling one variable with the goal of growing a plant taller than a control plant.
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments: Need for Speed Adventure 2
Students use a radio controlled car and weights to record the time of each run and determine velocity. They represent motion graphically and determine the relationship between speed, time, and weight. Students create and interpret...
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Growing & Observing Crystals
In this investigation, middle schoolers will grow their own crystals changing one variable, as compared to the control crystals, in order to determine the best environment and conditions to grow the best, largest crystals.
PBS
Pbs Nova Teachers: The Most Dangerous Woman in America: Classroom Activity
Test the efficacy of different types of hand hygiene to stem the transmission of diseases by conducting an experiment using variables and a control group.
CK-12 Foundation
Ck 12: Physical Science: Scientific Experiments
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] Experiments, experimental variables and experimental controls.
Other
Stat Soft: Statistics Glossary
Dozens of statistical terms are defined and illustrated in this glossary.
CK-12 Foundation
Ck 12: Biology: Science Experiments
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] Introduction to scientific experiments.
San Diego State University
Debian Tutorial
In general this tutorial tries to explain the reasons for things, and help you understand what's going on inside the system. The idea is to empower you to solve new problems and get the most out of your computer. Thus there's plenty of...
CK-12 Foundation
Ck 12: Collecting Data From Experiments: Experiment Techniques
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] This Concept introduces students to good design for statistical studies or experiments.
McREL International
Mc Rel: Glue Polymer (Whelmer #15 Learning Activity)
An easy to do activity that investigates the basic principles behind chemical bonding. The activity is written in lesson plan format that meets NSES standards.