Bio 1010

Lab 2: Scientific Method

Instructor: Avdar San
About Me
Email: Avdar.t.san@gmail.com
Late emails probably will get next day responses
Emails after Friday probably will get next week responses

My research
Computational modeling &
Docking of proteins and RNA
Science & Scientific Methodology
What is science?
What is the scientific method?

2.) Do background
1.) Ask a question 3.) Make a hypothesis
research

4.) Test with an

5.) Analyze data 6.) Draw a conclusion
experiment

7.) Communicate
results
Components of a Research Paper
Abstract
Introduction
Materials and Methods
Results
Discussion
 Discovery vs. Hypothesis Based
Science
Discovery Based
Relies on observations
Answers ‘what’, ‘where’, ‘when’ questions
Little or no manipulation of variables
Hypothesis Based
Starts with observation but then asks a testable
question
Answers ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions
Has independent and dependent variables
Scientific Variables
Independent variable- what is changed by the
experimenter, the cause
 Example: experimenter changes light level
Dependent variable- changes as a result of manipulating
the independent variable , the effect
Example: rate of plant growth changes
Control variables- constant throughout the experiment
Example: temperature in the lab
Effects Measured in Two Ways
 Quantitative
information that can be measured and recorded with numbers
Examples?
 Qualitative
information based on a characteristic that can’t be discretely
measured
Examples?
 Presenting and Analyzing Results

Tables
Figures
Graphs
 Tables
Represent results with many data points
Display several dependent variables
Quantitative values, not trends
Tables numbered consecutively Title located at top of table
throughout report and can explain table
without help from text
Table 2
Effects of Nutrient-enriched Water on Average Height and Leaf
Number in Agave Plant (30 Replicates, n=30)
All variables include
Treatment Plant height Number of necessary units
(ft.) leaves
Control (water) 2.51 19
10% nutrient-enriched 3.90 28
water
20% nutrient-enriched 4.17 30
water

How many plants were there in total?

 Figures
Includes graphs, diagrams, drawings, and photographs
Graph
Shows relationship between independent and dependent variables
Detect trends in data
X axis= independent variable, Y axis= dependent variable
Line graph for continuous data (height, age, price)
Bar graph for categorical data (species, sex, country)
 Note: time (e.g. year) can be continuous or categorical
 Graphs

Figure 1. Profit from CoffeeSmart beverages by product, December 2011-2013.

Figure title
Figure 2. Profit from all CoffeeSmart products, below graph
December 2011-2013.
 Understanding experiments
Brooklyn College professors noticed that students that yawned Figure 1
Effect of sleep on cognitive
more often in class often performed poorly on exams. They performance

surmised that students that slept more hours at night perform 100

better in class. To test this idea, the professors gathered 300 90

80

Memory task score (%)

students from campus and assigned each student to one of
70
three sleeping groups: Long sleep (>8 hours), short sleep (<5
60
hours) and no sleep regimen (i.e. personal decision). All 50
participants were male non-smokers between the ages of 18- 40

25. Participants followed their regimens for 6 consecutive 30

20
nights. Following the regimens, all participants completed a
10
cognitive-memory task. The data collected from the task are
0
Series1
shown in Figure 1, with 100 representing a perfect score:
Sleep group

Long Sleep Short sleep No regimen

Conducting Scientific Research
Primary literature (peer reviewed articles on reputable
journals)
Science, Nature, Cell etc
Secondary literature (either review articles from
journals or reputable science magazines, news outlets)
NYT, The Washington Post, Scientific American,
National Geographic etc
The rest (social media etc)
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc
Unless they provide proper references
PUBMED
Your best resource for peer reviewed and published
articles
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
Lab 2 assignments
There are a total of 4 assignments on MacMillan.
All about scientific method
Pre-lab, experiments, data recording, analysis
All due next Thursday night 11:59 pm