Data Interpretation Worksheet With the guidance of your mentor, chapter coordinator, and/or teacher, use this worksheet to guide you through developing your Discussion section and drawing your Conclusion. Discussion How did you conduct your experiment? What observations and data did you need to collect to answer your research question and evaluate your hypothesis? Refer to your experimental procedure, but focus on explaining why you designed your experiment the way you did. __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________
What did you find out? What did your data tell you? Refer to your graphs and charts from your Data Analysis, but remember to pretend you are trying to describe your data to someone who isn’t looking at your graphs. __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________
Can you identify any sources of experimental error in your original procedure or in the actual data collection that may have affected your results? How would such error have affected your data? How can such sources of experimental error be avoided in the future? __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________
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Conclusion Do your data support or disprove your hypothesis? Explain. __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________
How well do your results address your original research question? Has your research question been fully answered? Explain why or why not. __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ Based on what you learned, what additional research do you think should be conducted in order to advance the understanding of your project topic? __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ Finally, discuss some ideas for how your community can use what you’ve learned to help make a cleaner environment or conserve natural resources. __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________