Standard #: SC.7.N.1.4


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Identify test variables (independent variables) and outcome variables (dependent variables) in an experiment.


General Information

Subject Area: Science
Grade: 7
Body of Knowledge: Nature of Science
Big Idea: The Practice of Science -

A: Scientific inquiry is a multifaceted activity; The processes of science include the formulation of scientifically investigable questions, construction of investigations into those questions, the collection of appropriate data, the evaluation of the meaning of those data, and the communication of this evaluation.

B: The processes of science frequently do not correspond to the traditional portrayal of "the scientific method."

C: Scientific argumentation is a necessary part of scientific inquiry and plays an important role in the generation and validation of scientific knowledge.

D: Scientific knowledge is based on observation and inference; it is important to recognize that these are very different things. Not only does science require creativity in its methods and processes, but also in its questions and explanations.

Date Adopted or Revised: 02/08
Content Complexity Rating: Level 1: Recall - More Information
Date of Last Rating: 05/08
Status: State Board Approved
Assessed: Yes

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2002080: M/J Comprehensive Science 2, Advanced (Specifically in versions: 2014 - 2015, 2015 - 2022, 2022 - 2024, 2024 and beyond (current))
2001010: M/J Earth/Space Science (Specifically in versions: 2014 - 2015, 2015 - 2022, 2022 - 2024, 2024 and beyond (current))
2001020: M/J Earth/Space Science, Advanced (Specifically in versions: 2014 - 2015, 2015 - 2022, 2022 - 2024, 2024 and beyond (current))
2000010: M/J Life Science (Specifically in versions: 2014 - 2015, 2015 - 2022, 2022 - 2024, 2024 and beyond (current))
2000020: M/J Life Science, Advanced (Specifically in versions: 2014 - 2015, 2015 - 2022, 2022 - 2024, 2024 and beyond (current))
2003010: M/J Physical Science (Specifically in versions: 2014 - 2015, 2015 - 2022, 2022 - 2024, 2024 and beyond (current))
2003020: M/J Physical Science, Advanced (Specifically in versions: 2014 - 2015, 2015 - 2022, 2022 - 2024, 2024 and beyond (current))
1700100: M/J Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Learning Strategies (Specifically in versions: 2014 - 2015, 2015 - 2022, 2022 - 2024, 2024 and beyond (current))
7820016: Access M/J Comprehensive Science 2 (Specifically in versions: 2014 - 2015, 2015 - 2018, 2018 - 2023, 2023 and beyond (current))
2002085: M/J Comprehensive Science 2 Accelerated Honors (Specifically in versions: 2014 - 2015, 2015 - 2022, 2022 - 2024, 2024 and beyond (current))
2003030: M/J STEM Physical Science (Specifically in versions: 2015 - 2022, 2022 - 2024, 2024 and beyond (current))
2002200: M/J STEM Environmental Science (Specifically in versions: 2015 - 2022, 2022 - 2024, 2024 and beyond (current))
2001025: M/J STEM Astronomy and Space Science (Specifically in versions: 2015 - 2022, 2022 - 2024, 2024 and beyond (current))
2000025: M/J STEM Life Science (Specifically in versions: 2015 - 2022, 2022 - 2024, 2024 and beyond (current))
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Related Access Points

Access Point Number Access Point Title
SC.7.N.1.In.2 Recognize the relationship between the end product (dependent variable) and in the input (independent variable) in an experiment.
SC.7.N.1.Su.2 Recognize what is tested in a simple experiment (dependent variable).
SC.7.N.1.Pa.2 Recognize observable changes in a simple experiment, such as plant growth.


Related Resources

Lesson Plans

Name Description
Just Right Goldilocks’ Café: Temperature & Turbidity

This is lesson 3 of 3 in the Goldilocks’ Café Just Right unit. This lesson focuses on systematic investigation on getting a cup of coffee to be the “just right” temperature and turbidity level. Students will use both the temperature probe and turbidity sensor and code using ScratchX during their investigation.

Just Right Goldilocks’ Café: Turbidity

This is lesson 2 of 3 in the Just Right Goldilocks’ Café unit. This lesson focuses on systematic investigation on getting a cup of coffee to be the “just right” level of turbidity. Students will use turbidity sensors and code using ScratchX during their investigation.

Just Right Goldilocks’ Café: Temperature

This is lesson 1 of 3 in the Just Right Goldilocks’ Café unit. This lesson focuses on systematic investigation on getting a cup of coffee to be the “just right” temperature. Students will use temperature probes and code using ScratchX during their investigation.

 

Irrigation Station

This STEM lesson, complete with a design challenge, helps students design, build, and test irrigation methods. Students will incorporate and develop math skills through solving proportions as they work in teams to solve an engineering challenge.

Transformation of energy at the level of microprocessors

This is a lesson plan that will help students to understand that the Law of Conservation is applicable to all systems in nature, including their cell phone that they use regularly. It means that energy, though it might seem to have been created or destroyed, is actually conserved, but simply transformed from one form to another.

This Jar is TOO Difficult to Open!!

In this lesson, students will review the basic ideas of heat, the direction it flows, and the results of this flow on the kinetic energy and expansion of the particles. Students will investigate this concept in a 5E lesson format using claim, evidence, reasoning in their conclusion. They will determine how different temperature water baths effects the ease/difficulty of opening jars with tight fitting lids and link these results to the knowledge that heat flows from warmer to cooler materials. Applying the knowledge that increasing the amount of heat of the matter will increase the kinetic energy of it's particles, will result in expansion of that matter. Because each type of matter has a different coefficient of expansion, the amount of expansion will vary in different materials. Students will realize that a jar with a tight fitting lid may loosen if hot water is applied.

Cricket Songs

Using a guided-inquiry model, students in a math or science class will use an experiment testing the effect of temperature on cricket chirping frequency to teach the concepts of representative vs random sampling, identifying directly proportional relationships, and highlight the differences between scientific theory and scientific law.

Popping Balloons - Identifying Variables

This activity allows students to experiment with balloons. Students are given basic instructions to blow up and pop a balloon wearing goggles. Students will make observations and come up with testable questions. A lesson is given on the different types of variables. Students then design an experiment coming up with the testable question and identifying the variables. The idea behind this lesson is not for the student to conduct the experiment and collect the data, but that is a possible extension.

Socks and Temperature - A Heat Transfer Activity

In this lesson, students will predict if the temperature will rise inside of an empty sock compared to the air outside the sock then they will test their hypothesis. This lesson addresses heat transfer and variables.

Dissolving Gobstoppers Using Controls and Variables Students will conduct a simple laboratory experience that practices the proper use of controls and variables. Students will conduct a controlled experiment in their laboratory groups.

Original Student Tutorial

Name Description
Identification of Variables

Learn to identify the independent variable and the dependent variable in an experiment with this interactive tutorial.

Problem-Solving Task

Name Description
Scientific Method - Group Project Students are asked to design an experiment to answer an experimental question. Students should identify a control group, dependent and independent variables and possible outcomes or what type of data would be gathered. Students are not actually performing these experiments but will need to explain their investigations.

Text Resources

Name Description
Food Web Woes

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article describes two studies that show how the decline of large sharks has adverse effects on other organisms in their food web. The article explains that without apex predators like sharks, other large fish and rays tend to thrive and prey too heavily on shellfish populations.

Solving Bad Breath One Walnut at a Time

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The science fair project of two junior scientists in Nigeria may hold the key to ending "morning breath." Through experimentation, the two teenage girls determined that African walnuts were able to kill bacteria that cause bad breath. Their project was presented at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.

Discovery of Infrared Light

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article outlines the scientific mindset that led William Herschel to arrive at the discovery of infrared light, an unexpected consequence of an experiment he was conducting. More generally, the article demonstrates the scientific process, from hypothesis to observation and from inference to conclusion.

Worksheet

Name Description
Sponge Bob: Controls and Variables This fun worksheet uses the popular Sponge Bob characters to help students learn characteristics of the process of science inquiry, specifically, the identification of variables. Other concepts and skills that are addressed include: developing a conclusion, the purpose of a control group, the placebo effect, the initial observation, and analyzing data charts.

Student Resources

Original Student Tutorial

Name Description
Identification of Variables:

Learn to identify the independent variable and the dependent variable in an experiment with this interactive tutorial.



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