THE SCIENTIFIC APPROACH:

DEVELOPING A MODEL
Introduction:
•Unlike our prehistoric ancestors,
who survived through trial and
error – gradually learning which
types of stone were hard enough
to shape others, which plants are
edible and which are poisonous –
• we employ the quantitative theories of
chemistry to understand materials, make
better use of them, and create new ones:
specialized drugs to target diseases,
advanced composite for vehicles,
synthetic polymers for clothing and
sports gear, liquid crystals for electronic
displays, and countless others.
 THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD
• An approach used by scientists to understand
nature.
• It is not a stepwise checklist, but rather a
process involving creative propositions and
tests aimed at objective, verifiable
discoveries.
• There is no single procedure, and luck often
plays a key role in discovery.
 OBSERVATIONS:

• These are the facts our ideas must explain.

• The most useful observations are quantitative
because they can be analysed to reveal
trends. Pieces of quantitative information are
data.
• It can be stated as a natural law if universally
constant.
•The observation that mass remains
constant during chemical change-
made in the 18th century by French
chemist Antoine Lavoisier- is
known as the Law of Mass
Conservation.
 HYPOTHESIS:

• Whether derived from observation or

from a “spark of intuition,” a hypothesis
is a proposal made to explain an
observation.
• A sound hypothesis need not be correct,
but it must be testable by experiment.
• A hypothesis is often the reason for
performing an experiment: if the results
do not support it, the hypothesis must
be revised or discarded.
• Hypotheses can be altered, but
experimental results cannot.
EXPERIMENT:

• A procedure to test hypothesis, an

experiment often leads to a revised
hypothesis and new experiments to test
it.
• Typically contains at least two
variables, quantities that can have
more than one value.
• A well-designed experiment is
controlled in that it measures the
effect of one variable on another while
keeping all variables constant.
• Experimental results must be
reproducible by others.
MODEL (THEORY)

• Formulating conceptual models, or theories,

based on experiment that test hypotheses
about observations distinguishes scientific
thinking from speculation.
• A model is simplified representation of
some aspect of nature that we use to
predict related phenomena.
Consider this familiar scenario:

• While listening to an FM station on your

car’s audio system, you notice the sound is
garbled (OBSERVATION) and assume it is
caused by poor reception (HYPOTHESIS).
• To isolate this variable, you plug in your
MP3 player and listen to a song
(EXPERIMENT): the sound is still garbled.
• If the problem is not poor reception, perhaps
the speakers are at fault (NEW HYPOTHESIS).
• To isolate this variable, you listen with
headphones (EXPERIMENT): the sound is
clear.
• You conclude that the speakers need to be
repaired (MODEL).
• The repair shop says the speakers are fine
(NEW OBSERVATION), but the car’s amplifier
maybe at fault (NEW HYPOTHESIS).
• Repairing the amplifier corrects the garbled
sound (NEW EXPERIMENT), so the amplifier
was the problem (REVISED MODEL).
•Approaching a problem
scientifically is a common
practice, even if you’re not
aware of it.
TASK #2: Apply the Scientific Method to the
questions by making hypothesis and prediction to it.

• 1. How does the size of a dog affect how much food

it eats?
• 2. Does fertilizer make a plant grow bigger?
• 3. Does an electric motor turn faster if you increase
the current?
• 4. Is a classroom noisier when the teacher leaves
the room?
• 5. Will it going to rain if the sky is overcast?