V. Drawing Conclusions
This is the point of your
experiment when you determine if your hypothesis is correct or incorrect. It is also when you discuss any errors that
may have happened during your experiment and why your experiment turned out the
way it did. Most importantly it is when
you answer your question.
Below is a 2 paragraph
format for how to write a conclusion.
Paragraph 1 is a recap of what you did, Paragraph 2 is where you answer
your question and make inferences about what affected the outcome of your
experiment.
2
Paragraph Conclusion Format:
·
State your
question.
·
State your hypothesis.
·
Was your
hypothesis correct or incorrect?
·
Give some
evidence, from you data, to support this.
·
What
is the answer to your question?
·
Why
DO YOU THINK your experiment turned out the way it did? (make inferences)
·
Any problems? Explain them and the impact they had on the
results.
·
What further studies can you do that are
related to this topic?
Example:
For this project we tried to see what would happen to the amount of beach erosion
if we change the size of the particles. In
our hypothesis we thought that if we change the size of the particles, then
the larger particles would erode the least because it takes more energy to move
the larger particles. According to the data, this hypothesis turned out to
be correct. I say this because the beach made of rocks (the largest
particle) eroded the least with an average difference of .3 cm. Also because
the beach made of powder (the smallest particle) eroded the most with a
difference of 4.8cm.
From this experiment we learned that
sediment size does have an effect on erosion. I think this happened because
the waves we made did not have enough energy to move the larger particles. The powder on the other hand was so small
that the waves picked the powder particles, moving them into the water, making
the pile smaller. One thing that may
have affected the results is the fact that the powder was eroding even
before the waves were made. This
could result in the powder eroding less overall. The next time I do this experiment I would
use sand (because that is what most beaches are made of) and see how the
sand is affected by waves over different periods of time to see how time
affects wave erosion.
NOTE: The underlined
parts are universal and can be applied to just about any conclusion!!!!