Skills and Processes:

                           INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE

1.3 Skills and Processes:

Skills and processes are very essential for the study and practice of science.To find out and understand nature,we need skills as observing,inferring,making hypotheses,predicting,verifying and analysing.Processes such as investigating and problem solving,involve several skills. 

Observing

               Scientists are good observers.Care full observation requires sensory organs to be active.Very often scientists observe with the help of instruments,such as thermometers ,microscopes and telescopes because human senses are limited and not reliable.

Can you tell the hotness of tea with out a thermometer?

Can you see plant cells with your naked eyes?

Can you see the Jupiter's moon with out telescope?








Communicating:
Communication is a skill which involves transmitting and receiving information presented in various forms such as tables,charts and graphs.This  virtual text book also communicates knowledge ,information to you by using  words,phrases,numbers,various researches ,photographs,tables and graphs.
Why it is important for scientists and students to be ale to communicate effectively?
Answer to this simple question is with the help of your communication skills you can share and improve your findings about any thing.you can easily notice and resolve your mistakes.You can guide people in solving their problems also.
Inferring:
It is the skill of drawing conclusions from observations  and information gathered .For example if one observes that a plant can not make food in dark ,we can infer that light is needed for making food .

both her parents have curly hairs .What inference can yo u make?
Make an inference:
is her baby brother likely to have a curly hairs too?







The conclusions that you draw from inferring are called inferences.Different inferences can be made from same observation and not all observation turn out to be correct.
TRY IT OUT;
Inferences and observations should not be confused  .which are the following statements are inferences and which one is observations?
1.A spider has 8 legs 
2.Sun rises in east.
3.Earth revolves around the sun.
4.Earth has no iron core. 
Making hypothesis :
Formulating or making a hypothesis is a tentative explanation for an observation or phenomenon which can e  tested by investigation.It is the statement given after strong observation.
For example 
If your monitor screen is not working ,what is the possible cause?
Try to find out the cause why it is not working .it may e due to the faulty connections like connections are not correct .This statement is your hypothesis and now you can check your hypothesis that whether its true or not by making connections correct.If computer start working your hypothesis was correct but if it does not starts  you can make new hypothesis.Computer monitor is faulty.To test this hypothesis you can replace with one that is working.
Here is a flow chart  
                                                  OBSERVATION
                                     (Computer monitor is not working)

                                                          |||

                                            MAKE A HYPOTHESIS

                                     (Connection between monitor and CPU is loose)

                                                          |||

                                              TEST A HYPOTHESIS

                                     (fix connection to see if a monitor works)

                                                         |||

                                      Does the  Result of the test support the hypothesis?

                                               /                                            /

                                              /                                            /

                                         Yes                                           No

                                          /                                                /

                   ACCEPT HYPOTHESIS                             MAKE A NEW HYPOTHESIS

TRY IT OUT

Try to formulate a hypothesis based on the observation below How would you test your hypothesis?

OBSERVATION:

puddles of water take a longer time to dry up on a cool day than on a hot day. 

Planning investigation:

Tons of scientific  knowledge that we have today is the result of scientist's investigation that scientists have mode over years.

Here is a flow chart:

                                      Formulate a question or hypothesis for investigation 

                                                               |||

                                     Identify the variables involved ,which variable should be changed ?

                                      which variables should be kept constant?

                                                               |||

                                      Decide on the measurements or observations to be made

                                                               |||

                                      Decide on the materials or equipment required for

                                                          the investigation

                                                              |||

                                       Decide on the steps or procedure of the investigation

KEY POINT:

1.We need skills and processes to study and  practice science.

2.Observing ,Communicating,inferring,formulating,hypothesis and analyzing are some examples of skills while processes such as planning investigations and problem solving involve several skills.