Discovery vs. Conclusion
Teachers who have used the same science fair evaluation form for the last 30 years might not use the term “discovery” as much as we would like. Discoveries are very difference from conclusions, and it’s important to teach your child the difference. For example, I discovered that dropping Mentos mints into soda creates an eruption. That’s a discovery – not a conclusion – and this discovery leads me to ask more questions. How many Mentos do you need to make a soda geyser shoot up 20 feet? To answer this question, I have to set-up a series of experiments where I test what happens when I drop different numbers of Mentos into soda. In this case, the number of Mentos used in each experiment is the only thing that changes – it’s the variable – while everything else stays the same. Each test result leads me to make a new discovery – the test using four Mentos make a ten foot geyser while five Mentos created a fifteen foot geyser. Discoveries are just that… an observation with no right or wrong answer. Only after you’ve made a number of discoveries can you formulate a conclusion. In the case of the Mentos experiment, you discovered that there was a relationship between the number of Mentos you used and the height of the geyser. So, it’s fair to make this conclusion… A soda geyser using ten Mentos will shoot up higher than a geyser using only two Mentos mints.