Title of Experiment: short title of what your experiment is e.g. Effect of Substrate Concentration on the Enzyme Activity
Aim: State what are you are investigating
Hypothesis (optional): Your prediction of how one variable will affect another (how the independent variable will affect the dependent variable)
Materials/Equipment: A list of all the equipment/materials you need - be specific, e.g. don't say "beaker" specifiy whether it's a 100mL beaker or 500mL beaker
Risk Assessment: Are there any dangers/safety hazards? Draw up a table with 3 columns: substance of risk, nature of risk, and safety procedures
Method: Describe the steps involved in the investigation in
past tense. Make sure it's easy to follow and
be specific. Dont just write "add water to the beaker", instead say "add 100mL of water to the beaker"
If there's a control experiment, include what you're doing different to the actual experiment and why.
Variables:
Independent: what you're changing e.g. if you're testing the effect of temperature on enzyme action, the temperature is the independent variable.
Dependent: what you're measuring
Controlled: everything you're keeping the same
Results: A table for numerical data, and include graphs if appropriate. Also, choose the right graphs (use a line graph when you want to observe changes over a period of time (continuous) and show relationships/trends, and use a column graph when you want to compare the frequency of different groups/categories) For graphs, the independent variable is on the x-axis and the dependent is on the y-axis. Make sure you label the axis and give your graph a title. Also include appropriate scales in your graphs. For results, you can also draw diagrams e.g. the blood cells prac - draw both the red and white blood cells.
Discussion: Analyse your results - what do they show? Also, justify the proceduce/equipment you used. Were there any problems that occurred or might have occurred during your experiment, if so, how would you fix these problems if you could? Assess the
validity (did your experiment test what it set out to test?) ,
reliability (did you repeat the experiment and compare your results with your own trials and other other people's experiments, did you obtain similar results or were there discrepancies? For numerical data, did you obtain an average to minimise the effect of insignificant errors?) and
accuracy (did you measure things accurately e.g. did you use a measuring cylinder to accurately measure the amount of water you needed or did you "eyeball" it) of your experiment. You might include whether this investigation is better carried out individually or as a team.
Conclusion: Sum up what happened in the experiment, were there any trends/relationships/patterns (and if there were, what do they suggest), was your hypothesis (if you had one) accepted or rejected?
Examples of pracs you can use:
Maintaining a Balance: the enzyme pracs, investigating blood cells, xylem and phloem prac
Blueprint of Life: Modelling natural selection (with models you can also talk about limitations/advantages of models in your discussion).
Search for Better Health: Identifying microbes in food/water or pasteur's experiment.
