question for lewelma re dissection

[moskitoe]

Hi Ruth,

Your science postings have been so informative, thank you for taking the time...My question is how do you use the scientific method when you are doing something like dissection or watching butterflies go through the life cycle? These are some of the things we will be doing for our biology year and I would like to move beyond demonstrations. Any help would be great! Thanks.

Carolina

[lewelma]

My question is how do you use the scientific method when you are doing something like dissection or watching butterflies go through the life cycle? These are some of the things we will be doing for our biology year and I would like to move beyond demonstrations.

 

Hi Carolina,

 

Welcome to the board.

 

To me, dissections and life cycles are about observing your world. It is not really a demonstration or an experiment, and does not include the scientific method. This does not mean it is not valuable. It is wonderfully interesting and watching it in real life is so much more fun than looking at a diagram in a book. You just don't want to try to writing it up in a lab report as Hypothesis, method, results, discussion, because it does not fit in this form.

 

If you are really interested in making these specific activities into a scientific investigation, then you would need to ask questions like "Do butterflies emerge more quickly when their cocoon is in the sun or in the shade?" or "How do the organs of 2 different species of worms differ?"

 

For Biology, we dissected stuff (mostly what was dead and washed up on the beach) and watched both the frog and butterfly lifecycles to learn about our world. Then, separately, we did biology investigations.

 

Hope this helps. Happy to answer more questions,

 

Ruth in NZ

Edited April 16, 2012 by lewelma

[moskitoe]

Thanks so much, very helpful.