Activity 1: Fair or Not Fair?
Procedure:
1. Read the experiment below.
Janna’s Experiment
Janna noticed that there are crushed eggshells in the pots of
orchids in her neighbor’s garden. She wondered why eggshells are placed in
the pots. She observed the orchid leaves in the garden and she saw that the
leaves are dark green in color. She wants to find out if the eggshells affect the
growth of the orchids in the garden.
Janna guessed that orchids with eggshells will have greener leaves
than those without eggshells because as the eggshells decompose, minerals in
the shells and in the membrane will provide nutrients to the growing orchids.
Greener leaves mean the orchids are healthy.
Janna asked her father to help her prepare a greenhouse to conduct
an experiment. They purchased 10 pots of orchids of the same variety, size
and age. She arranged the 5 pots in the left corner of the greenhouse and
another 5 pots in the right corner. Then, she made an initial record of the
appearance of the orchids in her notebook. Together with her father, they
collected some eggshells, crushed them, and distributed them equally among
the 5 pots in the right corner. All the orchids were taken care of in the same
way for 45 days.
In the first and second week of observations, there were no
manifestations of changes in the orchids but the succeeding observations
started to show changes in the color of the orchid’s leaves. After 45 days,
Janna noticed that the leaves of the orchids with eggshells were darker green
in color than those without eggshells.
Janna discovered that eggshells can be used as fertilizers for some
varieties of orchids as shown by the greener color of their leaves.
2. Answer the given questions.
1. What are the initial observations in the situation?
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2. Can you identify the real problem in the experiment?
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3. What were the tentative explanations to the problem?
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4. How did Janna find out if the explanations to the problem are correct?
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5. Was there a fair testing in Janna’s experiment? Explain.
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6. How did Janna solve her problem?
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7. Enumerate the variables in Janna’s experiment.
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8. How do you differentiate the types of variables in an experiment?
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