By Denise Green

Using the 5 senses, describe what you see, hear, smell, feel, and possibly taste.

If you open a box of chocolates and you want to know what is inside of it you might:

Look at the shape of it.

Shake it to see if it’s hollow.

Smell it incase you can smell fruit or nuts

Feel for nuts or other additives.

Taste it!

Using tools such as rulers, scales, and numbers to compare variables

How many apples do you need to equal one pineapple?

Grouping objects by breaking them into common properties.

For Example dumping out a bucket of legos and dividing them by size and color.

Believing something to be correct because you’ve seen it happen before.

When I go fishing and my bobber goes under, I believe it is a fish because I have caught a fish with a bobber before.

Based on the knowledge I have, this is what I believe is going to happen.

I have made cookies before so I know that my oven requires an extra minute to bake cookies to perfection.

Using the same item and adjusting one thing to see what changes.

When I use an apple corer to peel apples what happens when I change the blade setting?

This is what I believe will happen next.

If I put a seed in soil and give it water and sunlight it will grow into a plant.

Putting together evidence and knowledge to explain why something happens.

Certain fish are attached to certain movements. Based on the movement in the water, and the size of the fish, specific lures/baits you will catch specific species of fish

Recording your data on paper and being able to verbally explain what happened.

Using a specific fishing lure and documenting what kind of fish you catch on it. Being able to share that information with other fishers.

Making Cookies

Hear – I hear the mixer blending the ingredients.

See- I see the ingredients turn into dough.

Taste- I taste the blended ingredients

Feel – I shape the dough into balls and put them on the cookie sheet.

Smell – I can smell the cookies baking

Using cups to measure dry or wet ingredients like flour, water, and milk

Using Tablespoons and teaspoons to measure small amounts of salt or baking soda.

Preheating the oven to the correct temperature.

Using the exact amounts of ingredients to get the chemical reaction needed to create the cookie dough.

Having the exact temperature in the oven to change the ingredients from dough into cookie.

If I don’t cook the dough long enough what will happen?

If I cook the dough too long what will happen?

What if I don’t add enough baking soda?

What if I forget an ingredient?

How will it taste if I add something different like nuts?

I can write out my recipe with specific measurements for someone else to follow.

I can bake cookies with my granddaughter and teach her how to measure out the ingredients.

Popcorn isn’t the same without butter on it! What would happen if the temperature of the butter varied?

Manipulated Variable – butter

Responding variable – popcorn

Control variables - heat (melted or not melted butter), container, amount of butter

If the butter wasn’t heated it would sit on the top of the popcorn. If the butter is heated to melted, it would drizzle over the popcorn the way we like it!

A descriptive investigation is a scientific investigation that collects data which measures or describes objects or events. it collects qualitative & quantitative data. it includes a question, but no hypothesis ; no variables are manipulated .

Understanding how to group objects and organisms according to properties or traits.

Focuses on how variables could be related and what happens when one of those variables is changed.

What do each of the seeds look like?

Which one is the smallest? The thinnest?

What do I know about planting seeds?

Are they planted with the right side up?

How deep do they need to be planted?

Is it warm enough? Do they have enough sunlight?

Is the soil appropriate for the seeds?

How long does it take for them to germinate?

http://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/nih6/inquiry/guide/nih_doing-science.pdf

What is a Descriptive Investigation? (n.d.). WikiAnswers. Retrieved from http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_a_Descriptive_Investigation