Scientific Method

• Review your lecture notes!

• Terms you will be using/applying:
– Independent variable
– Dependent variable
– Standardized/controlled variables
– Identifying statements that are or are not
hypotheses
Scientific Notation, Metric
System, and Data Analysis
Biology 1410
 Scientific Notation
• Scientific notation is a way of
writing very big or very small
numbers
• Rules:
– Only one integer to the left of
the decimal point between 1-
9
– Unlimited numbers to the
right of the decimal point
• When do you use scientific
notation?
– You can use it for any number!
– If the number is larger than
100
– If the number is smaller than
0.1
 Units of Measurement
• Mass: gram
• Length: meter
• Volume: liter
• Temperature: degrees Kelvin (but we usually
use Celsius in this lab)
Metric System and Prefixes
Prefix Factor Length Mass Volume

kilo 1000 kilometer kilogram kiloliter

BASE UNIT 1 meter gram liter

Deci- 0.1 decimeter decigram deciliter

Centi- 0.01 centimeter centigram centiliter

Milli- 0.001 millimeter milligram milliliter

(1 X 10-3)
Micro- 0.000001 micrometer microgram microliter
(1 X 10-6)
Basic conversion • 1 kilometer =1000 meters
• 1 decimeter=0.1 meters
factors • 1 centimeter=0.01 meters
(Remember: you •
•
1 millimeter=0.001 meters
1 micrometer (um)= 1 X 10-6 meters
can do the same
with grams and
liters as well
• 1 meter= 0.001 km
• 1 meter=10 decimeters
• 1 meter=100 cm
• 1 meter=1000 mm
• 1 meter= 1 X 106 um
 Example 1: Dimensional Analysis
• 96 cm=____m
– What is the conversion factor?
• 1 cm=0.01m
– Set up the grid as shown below

96 cm 0.01 m

1 cm = 0.96 m
 Metric Conversions—Dimensional Analysis
Examples
• 300 cm=___km
• We can restate this in two steps:
– Convert 300 cm to m first
• Conversion factor? 1 cm=0.01m
• 300 cm (0.01m) = 3 m
1 cm
– Then, convert the m to km
• Conversion factor? 1m=0.001 km
• 3 m( 0.001 km) = 0.003 km (or 3 X 10-3 km)
1m
 Laboratory Equipment: Precision and
Accuracy
• Accuracy: how close a
value is to its actual “true”
value
– Instruments are calibrated
for this
• Precision: how
reproducible the value is
upon repeated
measurement
– This is about how the person
does the experiment!
• You want to be BOTH
accurate and precise!
 Types of Data Display

• Graphs
• Tables
Data: What • Charts
to do with
it?? Types of Data Analysis

• Basic descriptives: mean,

median, mode, range
• Measures of Variation:
variance, standard deviation
 • Line graph
– Track changes over
time or other
independent
variable (most
often used in this
Data class)
• Bar graph
Display – Make comparisons
between 2 or more
Types groups
• Pie charts
– Compare parts of a
whole (not used in
this class)
• Charts and tables
– Summarizes data
points
Example: How to read a line graph
• On December 1, what was
the temperature at 11 am?
– 11 am is on the x axis; move
up to find the point on the
line, which corresponds to
25 degrees on the y axis.
• What is the independent
variable?
• What is the dependent
variable?
 The mean

• arithmetic average of the values for a given data set.

Basic The median

• the value that divides the distribution of a set of ranked

Descriptive values in half.
• For a data set that has an even number of values, you
add the two median values and divide the sum by 2.
Statistics-
The mode
Definitions • value that appears most often in the sample data set.
• Sometimes there is no mode, if every value is unique
• Sometimes there are multiple modes (bimodal= 2
modes, etc)

The range

• difference between the largest value and the smallest

value in the data set.
 • Variation refers to the fact that not all
values in a data set are the same—they
vary from each other.
• Two ways to measure variation are
variance and standard deviation.
Descriptive – The variance is the sum of the
individual deviations from the mean,
Statistics: which are squared, and then divided
Variation by the total number of measurements
(n or n-1).
– The standard deviation is the square
root of the variance.
• Both standard deviation and variance are
indications of how well the population is
represented by the mean.
Interpreting Standard Deviation: An example
• Two cities have the same average temperature:
– City A has an average temperature of 74 F
– City B has an average temperature of 74 F
• The standard deviation for each city is shown below:
– City A: 3 degrees
– City B 15 degrees
• It would be easier to predict the temperature in City A for a given day since
the standard deviation is small.
– Less variation!
• It would be harder to predict the temperature in City B because the standard
deviation is large.
– More variation!
• Smaller standard deviation means that the average, or mean, is a better
representation of the population