Now that you've collected your data, it's time to look at it and explain your results and draw any conclusions that you can make from your data. If you have already made a graph, you can look at that too.
Your results describe what happened. Let's look at
the data from our experiment rolling toy cars down the ramp:
| Name(s): Beatrice, Shawanda and Dixon | |||||
| Homeroom teacher: Ms. Wonderful | Group # 4 | ||||
| Data Chart | Question: If we change the weight of the car, will that change the distance it travels down the ramp? | ||||
| trial# | Independent Variable: The weight of the car measured in grams | ||||
| Dependent
Variable:
How far it travels Measured in: centimeters
|
Car #1 (38g) | Car #2 (53g) | Car #3 (64g) | ||
| 1 | 41 | 33 | 62 | ||
| 2 | 47 | 30 | 70 | ||
| 3 | 21 | 44 | 81 | ||
| 4 | 22 | 41 | 74 | ||
| 5 | 29 | 46 | 80 | ||
| average: | 32 | 36.8 | 73.4 | ||
Our results could say something like this:
Our data shows that the heavier the car, the farther the car traveled. The heaviest car (#3) traveled over twice as far as the lightest car.
When you write your conclusions, you write about what you have learned about this experiment. You state whether your data supported your hypothesis (Did it turn out the way I thought it would?). This is also where you explain your results. Why do you think your experiment had the results that it did? Did anything surprise you? Was there something about how you set up your experiment that you could change to improve your design? What do you know now that you didn't know before about your topic?