Science Process Skills

The behavior of scientists when they

study and investigate.
GPS
• S8CS1. Students will explore the
importance of curiosity, honesty,
openness, and skepticism in
science and will exhibit these traits
in their own efforts to understand
how the world works.
 Qualitative Observation
Observation using the five senses to gather
information about an object or event.
Example: Describing a pencil as yellow.

• Taste
• Touch
• Hearing
• Sight
• Smell
 Quantitative Observation
Observation using measurement
• Usually precise and specific
• using both standard and nonstandard
measures or estimates to describe the
dimensions of an object or event.
• Example: Using a meter stick to measure the
length of a table in centimeters.
 Classification
• A systematic arrangement
into groups
• grouping or ordering
objects or events into
categories based on
properties or criteria.
• Example: Placing all rocks
having certain grain size
or hardness into one
group.
 Communication

• The act of transmitting and/or receiving

information
• using words or graphic symbols to
describe an action, object or event.
• Example: Describing the change in
height of a plant over time in writing or
through a graph.
 Hypothesis
• A special kind of prediction that forecasts how one
variable will affect a second variable (educated
guess)
• Written in (If, then format)
Example:
If the temperature of sea water increases, then the
amount of salt that dissolved in that water increases.
 Prediction
• Forecasting of future
events
• stating the outcome of a
future event based on a
pattern of evidence.
• Example: Predicting the
height of a plant in two
weeks time based on a
graph of its growth during
the previous four weeks.
 Inference
• An explanation of an observation
• What are your assumptions?
• I assume this is an insect because it has
six legs, and when I’ve seen insects
before they have six legs.
• What have you seen before that
reminds you of this?
• How can you find out?
 Variables
• Factors, conditions, and or relationships
that can change or be changed in an
event or system.
• Controlling
• Constant
“Science is built up with facts as a house is with
stones. But a collection of facts is no more a
science than a heap of stones is a house.”
-Jules Henri Poincare