DAY 4
Experimental Design – A New Problem to Investigate
After analyzing the data from Day 3, and generating a list of questions that they would like to explore, the students will work in small groups and design an investigation to address the question.
The investigation must involve the cosmic ray equipment available with minor modifications. The equipment can count cosmic ray coincidences and time-stamp them. The scintillator paddle separation can be adjusted. There are twelve Quarknet telescopes available in the system.
The question should be testable, and the experimental design should provide a means to investigate the problem.
Individuals in each group will brainstorm ideas about the experimental design, and begin to develop a model.
Possible Questions (for teacher to ask, or possible rubrik for peer review):
What’s the relationship between number of cosmic counts and temp., air pressure, solar period, scintillator sensitivity, latitude, separation of paddles, separation of telescopes, cloud cover?
Are any or all of the above variable interrelated?
Can you control for these variables? How?
What do you expect to find?
How will your study contribute to, or extend what has already been discovered?
Will the design provide any additional information? (compared to the original data)
Is the data replicable? Is the data valid?
How will you analyze your data?
How can you evaluate your findings? How do you know it’s useful? Can you know if it’s useful?
Could someone else perform your experiment? (from your design)
Resources pertaining to presentation format should be available to the students. Posters, PowerPoint, digital cameras, report examples, etc.