Wednesday, Jan. 14 - Scientific Method - Experimental Design

Objective: You will learn how to design an experiment and what goes into designing a good experiment.

Think about the experiment in Monkey See, Monkey Take. What were some of the steps involved in conducting the experiment? What are some factors that might cause monkeys to approach one researcher instead of another? In what ways would you change this experiment?

Some Important Vocabulary

• Independent Variables- changes in the experiment that are controlled by the experimenter (for example, having one researcher face away while the other faces the grape).
• Dependent Variables- changes that occur as a result of the independent variable (for example, the monkey steals the grape when the researcher turns away).
• Controlled Variables- Anything else that could impact the results of the experiment (for example, the clothing of the researchers, the distance of the researchers from the grape and from the monkey, etc.) These variables are held constant during an experiment.