BOT 101: INTRODUCTORY BOTANY
LECTURE FIVE
Biological Techniques – Scientific Method. Presentation of data.
A. Biological techniques are methods or procedures that are used to study living things.
They include experimental and computational methods, approaches, protocols and
tools for biological research.
Various new methods and techniques have developed in the study of biology,
like microscopy, liquid chromatography, distillation techniques and paper chromatography.
Simple Microscopes are a common method used to study microorganisms.
Why do we study biological techniques?
These techniques provide valuable tools for understanding biological processes and
advancing the biotechnology field,
Employers in academia, industry, and government highly seek them.
B. What is the Scientific Method?
The scientific method is a process of experimentation that is used to explore observations and
answer questions. At the end of your presentation, summarise your data findings to ensure
that your audience understands
Steps of the Scientific Method
1. Ask a Question
The scientific method starts when you ask a question about something that you observe:
How, What, When, Who, Which, why, or where?
For a science fair project, some teachers require that the question be something you can
measure, preferably with a number.
For detailed help with this step, use these resources:
2. Do Background Research
together a plan to answer your question, you want to be
Rather than starting from scratch and putting
a savvy scientist using library and Internet research to help you find the best way to do things
and ensure that you don't repeat mistakes from the past.
3. Construct a Hypothesis
A hypothesis is an educated guess about how things work. It attempts to answer
your question with an explanation that can be tested. A good hypothesis allows you
to then make a prediction:
"If _____[I do this] _____, then _____[this]_____ will happen."
State both your hypothesis and the resulting prediction you will be testing.
Predictions must be easy to measure.
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4. Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment
Your experiment tests whether your prediction is accurate and, thus, whether your
hypothesis is supported or not. It is important for your experiment to be a fair test. You
conduct a fair test by ensuring you change only one factor at a time while keeping all other
conditions the same.
You should also repeat your experiments several times to ensure the first results weren't just
an accident.
5. Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion
Once your experiment is complete, you collect your measurements and analyze them to see if
they support your hypothesis or not.
Scientists often find their predictions inaccurate and their hypotheses not supported. In such
cases, they will communicate the results of their experiment and then go back and construct a
new hypothesis and prediction based on the information they learned during their experiment.
This starts much of the process of the scientific method over again. Even if they find that
their hypothesis is supported, they may want to test it again in a new way
6. Communicate Your Results
To complete your science fair project, you will communicate your results to others in
a final report and/or a display board. Professional scientists do almost exactly the
same thing by publishing their final report in a scientific journal or by presenting their
results on a poster or during a talk at a scientific meeting. In a science fair, judges
are interested in your findings regardless of whether or not they support your original
hypothesis.
Summary
What are the six steps of the scientific method?
The six steps of the scientific method include 1) asking a question about something you
observe, 2) doing background research to learn what is already known about the topic, 3)
constructing a hypothesis, 4) experimenting to test the hypothesis, 5) analysing the data from
the experiment and drawing conclusions, and 6) communicating the results to others.
C. What is data presentation in biology?
Data obtained by biologists from experiments, measurements, or observations are eventually
presented in the results section of a scientific report or manuscript.
Data presentation is a process of comparing two or more data sets with visual aids, such as
graphs. Using a graph, you can represent how the information relates to other data. This
process follows data analysis and helps organize information by visualizing and putting it
into a more readable format. This process is useful in nearly every industry, as it helps
professionals share their findings after performing data analysis
However, summary data in which your work is compared (in either a table or graph) with that
of other published information may be placed in the discussion.
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There are generally three forms of presentation of data: • Textual or Descriptive presentation,
• Tabular presentation, • Diagrammatic presentation
Textual
When presenting data in this way, you use words to describe the relationship between
information. Textual presentation enables researchers to share information that cannot be
displayed on a graph. An example of data you may present textually is findings in a study.
When a researcher wants to provide additional context or explanation in their presentation,
they may choose this format because information may appear clearer in the text.
Textual presentation is common for sharing research and presenting new ideas. It only
includes paragraphs and words rather than tables or graphs to show data.
Tabular
Tabular presentation using a table to share large amounts of information. When using this
method, you organize data in rows and columns according to the characteristics of the data.
Tabular presentation is useful in comparing data, and it helps visualize information.
Researchers use this type of presentation in analysis, such as:
The benefits of using a table to share your data are that it simplifies the data, making it easily
consumable to viewers, helps provide a side-by-side comparison of the variables you choose
and it can save space in your presentation because a table condenses the information.
Diagrammatic
This method of displaying data uses diagrams and images. It is the most visual type for
presenting data and provides a quick glance at statistical data.
Since they are more visual than the other methods of presenting data, diagrams can share
more information about the relationships between variables in the data set. For example, a bar
graph can show data by the rectangle's color and size, and a more advanced bar graph can be
used to share data from multiple variables over time. The diagrammatic presentation also
helps to read data quickly and provides an easy comparison.
At the end of your presentation, summarise your data findings to ensure that your audience
understands
