Friday, September 19, 2008

Airplane Lab Reflection - Period 5

We have spent the last week or so doing our first experiment. We did this to learn for ourselves how scientists work.

Now that you have completed this experiment, it is time to look back and think about what you have learned. Look over the following questions and then write a two to three-paragraph reflection that answers them. This is to be done on your own.

  • What have you learned about how scientists work and the methods they follow?
  • Why do you think this method would add to scientific knowledge?
  • What would you do differently next time in terms of how your group performed your experiment?

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

I learned that scientists have many steps when they work. Also that when scientists work they always have methods that they follow (hypothesis, question, experiment, problem, observations, infrences, predictions, and a conclusion). The methods can not be combined, you have to do each method at a time. The most important thing I learned about how scientists work and about the methods was you can never leave a method, if you did it can make the experiment use less and; that every scientists should work through the methods, even if they do not want to do all of the work.

I think this method would add to the scientific knowledge because not every plane flys the same and some are slow some are fast. Every plane is diffrent no matter what ever you do. Even if you make the same plane, no plane is perfectly the same.

The big thing that we could do better is focuse alot better next time. Alot of time they had to be reminded that we had to work. They kept talking off topic. Other then that we worked very nicely together. We all helped out and not one person did everything.

By:
Pony Girl

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Anonymous said...

I learnd that scientest can work togather if they all share ideas with one another. I think its hard all having the same ideas in a group because you are all fighting on who gets to do what but when you have differnt ideas you can work it out on who got the idea first.
I think it can add because not all planes fly the same there all built different. Even if you try to make a twin of a plane there going to have differnt times, or how high they go.
Try to stay more on topic and work on who dos what because it was sometimes confusing. But my group worked really great, it wasent like we dident like one another.

Anonymous said...

I think that the air plain lab thought me more about how sciencetists think and work. I like how we saw the different kids in Australia fly there plain and then we flue ours. It was fun to fly the plains and measure them. I think our should have tried different plains we only tried darts.
We should have tried different types of Plaines so if the dart did not fly the farthest we would have to use a different type of plain. We should have tried to find a way to make the plain heaver so it would have gone farther then it did.

Anonymous said...

I learned that the progect used the scientific method because for step 1 the problem was which paper airplane was the best. the hypothesis because we had to have an idea of what the best plane would be and for the test we flew them to see how far they flew we did the trial 5 times on three planes if we did it a few hundred times it would become scientific theory a bit more and it would become scientific law.

p.s hy mr ardito

Anonymous said...

I think that this report has taught me a lot about aero dynamics and flight. I think its nice doing something fun as work cause well it doesn’t really feel like work. I like my group will do that bad and I think it would be good if we win. I don’t think my group will do that bad but the entire group is looking pretty strong. Two of my groups air So over all the progect went well. And I think it will have a good out come.
planes are equal because one flew an average of 42.4 and another flew 41.3. but the one that flew 41.3 flew 6 inches farther at each of there farthest 6 inches farther.

Anonymous said...

I found from this experiment that scientists have to be very precise and exact. I knew before that being precise and exact was some part of their jobs, but I didn’t know to what extreme. For example, if my group and I didn’t click the timer exactly when it left our hand to when it went past the line, (Which we probably didn’t do) the whole experiment would be inexact.
Even if we did get the time right, we didn’t discus at which point when the air planes crossed the line we would stop the timer. Like if we would stop the timer for every plane when its nose crossed or maybe when the whole plane crossed we would stop the timer. The whole idea was to only have one variable that was changed so we would know that the differences between the three experiments were caused by the one variable that was changed. I don’t think that happened in the best existent that it could have.
I think we worked well together as a group and I think that is a big part of the job for a scientist. If you can’t work well with other people, there is only so far you can go in science.

Anonymous said...

I thought that the Paper Plane Lab was a lot of fun to do. One of the things I would do differently next time to improve the experiment is to have a little bit more time for research, and trials of planes, before selecting three candidates. This would help because then, your group would probably have more, and better planes to choose from which would help make the experiment more efficient, and accurate. Also, nobody knows if our research is accurate… someone could have had clicked the timer a millisecond to soon, or too late, and it would make a huge different in the results.
I thought our group worked really well together, we were productive, and everyone contributed ideas, and thoughts which made everything run really smoothly. Every person has different ideas, and all ideas are valuable, so working with a group is very helpful for a scientist because lots of ideas are being pooled together, which benefits everyone with even more knowledge about the topic.
For scientist to work well, they need to be organized, and accurate. When doing research they need to make sure all of the information is correct, and useful. Also, to do an experiment, scientists have many methods that they use like problem, hypothesis, observations, inferences, and conclusion. These things really help scientists organize their thinking, so that the main question that the scientist started with is answered.

:)

Anonymous said...

Scientists have lots of steps in working. They follow a lot of steps like the problem, hypothesis, observations, inferences, experiment, and conclusions. They all have to be done one at a time.

The thing I would do differently in the next airplane experiment IF we were to do one, Is I would spend more time working on the planes to make them more perfect, and make them more aerodynamic, and make the folding straighter. I think we should have spent more time on the paper airplanes and making them better and faster.

-Railroadfan
I love trains

Anonymous said...

During the duartion of the airplane experiment, I learned that scientists have many steps to solving a problem. The first is a hypothesis. It helps to have an idea of what you think is going to happen, not just a wild guess. Next, during the experiment, you make observations, these are things you see, fell, smell,taste and hear. Basiclly, things you notice. Finally, you make a conclusion. A conclusion is based on your hypothesis and observatios, giving a retelling of what happened. Thes three things are a part of the scientific method, the heart of the scientific world.

The scientific method greatly increeses your knowladge. Without it you can't remember what happened yesterday because of observations. Without a hypothesis, you have nothing to go on. And without a cunclusion, theres nothing to prove. Without these three, whats the point?

Personaly, and I don't mean to brag, but our team ROCKED!! We stayed on topic, we got good research in, and we got the results we were looking for. The only bad thing was orginization. During the last part, Brenden did my packet a little, and I did Joes, but altogether I would be AWESOME to work with those guys again.

Anonymous said...

Airplane Reflection
I learned that scientist use a method called scientific method to do experiments. This method includes a problem or question, a hypothesis, observations and a conclusion. Scientists usually include a list of tools they use, research and a data table, graph or something to store the data in. The final step is to talk with other scientists about the experiment. During this step they figure out what problems there were, if there were any, and decide what to do next.

This method would add to scientific knowledge because you’re forced to look at the experiment more closely if you follow the method than if you don’t follow the method. Because of this scientists will make more discoveries.

My team did great but next time I would test the planes in different places, such as outside, throw them differently, test them more times with new definitions of best. Overall I thought my group, the project, and I all did well and, throwing paper airplanes is always fun.

Anonymous said...

I learned that scientists think and work by using a problem, hypothesis, procedure, observation, inference, and conclusion as their method. They work by compromising, working together and sharing ideas/work. Also I learned that the experiment method has to be precise and exact for it to be accurate because if it isn’t you could get different results and the wrong plane could be the fastest.
Next time I would do this experiment differently by having the same person throw the planes because everybody throws differently. Also I would see what I could do to make the time more exact because with the stopwatch you either press the button to early or to late.

Anonymous said...

tony s. paper air plane!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!***********

I learned that scientists take a long time to go through each step so they don't get anything wrong. i learned how to really make a hypothisis because other teaches just said to guess. this method added to my scientific knowlage that you really need to take your time when you do a(n) experiment.
the exspirements were fun and it helps me remember what i learned. i also learned how to make a relly good paper air plane. i would use my two best planes and morfed them together to make it the "best".
i would use my time more wisley if we did it again. i would work a little bit harder on it than i did and keep more foucused on my work and finishing the different steps in the amount of time that was givin. I would of diffined the meaning of best differently.

by tony s

Anonymous said...

Reflection:
By: Chrissybrown08

During this unit I have learned a lot about the scientific method such as, Experiment, question,Problem, Hypotheses, Materals, Procedure, Observations,inferences,predictions, and the conclution. It think that the method would add to the scientific method because by laying everything out it is easier to have a successful experiment. I thnk that my group worked great together, we each had a responcibility to do and we al for filled our jobs. I also think that if i were to swich groups i wouldn't be able to work as well. We had both the best time and we also learned how to become better "scientist"!!!!!

Anonymous said...

1. I have learned that all of us have to listing to each others ideas. Also that we have to take knowledge of what other people do.
2. I think it would add that to look at other people and to let people take the wheel and show their paper planes.
3. What I think we all should do next time is to focus and think of the task at hand.

Anonymous said...

i leared that scintists have many steps when they work. They have do alot of research. They do alot of testing on there experiment. In our class we are all scientist trying to find out which stlye plane would fly the highest and the fast and does the most tricks. Dan group we pick the three best planes and they work. And the plane that I made went fastest and few the furthest and Nick plane did the most tricks. We tested our planes atleast five times to make sure what design was the best. Then was the big test we all went to the gym and got out a tape measure and we flew our planes and my flew the furthest. It went 46 feet and the other planes that we flew didnot go that far because they were all made to do tricks.Our conclusion were that our planes did all work they did everything that we design them to do they flew the furthest and they also did alot of tricks.

Anonymous said...

I learned about how scientists follow many methods. Some methods they use are questioning, figuring out what the problem is, experimenting, observing, inferring, and predicting. Every one of these methods is very important in order to solve any problem. For example, if I do an experiment but don’t observe it, the experiment is failed.
I think this method would add to scientific knowledge because it shows that there are many different ways to experiment. Some planes had to be thrown a certain way to get farther. Some planes were made with different kind of paper to increase length a plane flies. With each plane and each group, there were variables.
If we did this project again I would try to get to class that day. One plane we had was a great plane, but since I was absent, the group couldn’t throw the plane correct. I can’t say if my group worked hard or not because I was not in the day of the experiment but I’m sure they work good.

Anonymous said...

I learned that scientists have an interesting job that requires many important methods that are used to test a hypothesis in an organized controlled way. The most important thing I learned is that the scientific method is a standard method that can be extremely useful for a controlled experiment.

If I wanted to chang something about how my group performed the experiment, I would try to improve our organization techniques, and our abilities to work together as a team.

Anonymous said...

yyyyyyooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!stewie213 sighning in!

I have learned that scientist have to take alot of steps to complete their work. Which is hypothesis, question, experiment, problem, observations, infrences, predictions, and conclusions. The hypothes is one of the most important parts because it is saying what you think is going to happen when you conduct the experiment because it is also the conclusion when you end the experiment. These methods are very important and if no one did these methods it could get dangerous.

My favorite part is when we cunducting the experiment and making the airplanes that was fun. The annoying part was when you make a airplane and if the airplane crashed head first it would be totally messed up.

The only thing i would change is that i would put details on my planes or would had made better planes because mine stopped working after a couple of hours.

BY:
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Anonymous said...

Scientists have to follow the scientific method. The scientific method is
a step by step procedure that is followed when trying to doing an experiment.
The first step is to ask a question. The second step is to do background research.
The background research helps you learn a little bit more about the topic. The
third step is to create a hypothesis. A hypothesis is an educated guess. The next
step is to create an experiment and record the data. The next step is to analyze the
results and draw a conclusion. The final step is to report the results.

The scientific method adds to knowledge because the results are reported. Then
other scientists can use the results to ask new and different questions.

The next time we do this type of experiment, I would change the way we made
the planes. I would the planes narrower to give them better aerodynamics.

Anonymous said...

Paper Airplane Lab
By Milky Milk



The method scientists follow to complete their research involves many steps. The most important before you begin anything is having a hypothesis. Without having this kind of question, you can’t test anything (like would a plane with no nose fly faster than a plane with a nose?).

Following the scientific method procedure helps a scientists research and gives us the knowledge we need when asking our own questions. The steps involved and the data that is gotten from this helps the scientist build & test their creations. When we’re given the opportunity to examine a bunch of things, we have choices & can make our own decisions. We could even create something better than the original idea or data by using our own knowledge.

If I could do my experiment again, I would give my group some more time to actually build more planes to test. We didn’t have enough time to look at any books to help us make the planes either & I would have liked that. I also think we should have had another day in the gym to test our airplanes. The narrow hallway was a bit too small to really see what our planes could do.

Anonymous said...

This I learned that scientists work by following steps. They follow these steps to make sure their information is true and accurate. I also learned that one of the methods scientists follow is called the Scientific Method. The Scientific Method is steps that are followed during an experiment to make sure that the data is true and accurate. In our experiment, we used the Scientific Method.
This method adds to scientific knowledge because if you do not record your information, then other scientists will not be able to repeat your experiment. Other scientists will not know what you did, so they might do their experiment a little different and that would change the whole outcome of the experiment. For example, in your experiment, if you stop the stopwatch when the nose crosses the line, you would get different results than if you stop the stopwatch when the whole plane crosses the line. You would get different information. So, this method adds to scientific knowledge because in the Scientific Method, you record your information in an organized fashion. If you do not record the information, scientists will not know what you did. I learned that scientists work by following steps. They follow these steps to make sure their information is true and accurate. I also learned that one of the methods scientists follow is called the Scientific Method. The Scientific Method is steps that are followed during an experiment to make sure that the data is true and accurate. In our experiment, we used the Scientific Method.
I would have done a couple things differently in my experiment. I would have punched holes in all of the planes or none of the planes because if one plane has the advantage of wind cutting through it, I think all the planes should. I also think we should have had the same person throw all the planes because everyone throws at different speeds. It would be more accurate if the same person threw all the planes.