Volcanoes Activity 2 - Volcanoes Where and Why?

Course Outline

Geology

Volcanoes

Volcanoes Activity 3: Becoming a Vulcanologist

Imagine that you are a vulcanologist who is trying to classify Oregon's volcanoes. To get funding from the National Science Foundation, you are required to write a description of your proposed research so that they can evaluate the merit of your experiment. In this activity, you will write a hypothesis and a proposal for an experiment.

Objectives

To use information you have learned about Oregon's Volcanoes to generate a question for an experiment.
To write a good hypothesis, synthesizing background information about Oregon's Volcanoes.
To practice writing a step-by-step procedure.

Note that one of the goals of this course is to help you learn how to design and conduct an experiment. This is your first opportunity to practice with experimental design, so please take your time to read the instructions and to think about what you are doing.

Hypothesis

What is a hypothesis? Most of us think of a hypothesis as an educated guess. This is true to an extent, but there is more to a good hypothesis. A good hypothesis has two parts - background information and a prediction. Background information can include a variety of things including facts about the subject that you already know, observations that you have made either in the course of researching the subject or at any point in your life, and/or information from research that you conduct in order to write your hypothesis. The prediction for the hypothesis can come at the beginning or the end of the hypothesis, but it needs to be clearly stated in a way that can be tested. A hypothesis is usually longer than students expect it to be.

To summarize, a good hypothesis has two parts:

background information
a prediction

Here is an example of a thought from a student's parent that might form good background information for a hypothesis:

Of interest to me from Volcano World is the information on volcanoes in Ethiopia. I was born in Addis Ababa and have seen Zukwala often. We lived on the edge of a crater lake, Bobogaya in the Bishoftu Maars system pictured in the Volcano World web site. Our view here in Powell Butte looking north toward Grizzly Peak is so similar to the view looking north from our home in Ethiopia

One might go on to hypothesize:

Because of the similarity in the views, I think that if I research the plate tectonic formation of Grizzly Peak in the Newberry System I will find that it is similar to the plate tectonic formation of the Bishoffu Maars system in Ethiopia.

Writing Assignment - Part 1
Your first step is to think over the information you have learned during this unit. You might pull out notes you've taken or brainstorm on a piece of paper. Is there anything you see that is interesting? Are there any patterns you see? Then generate a question that you can imagine testing about Oregon's volcanoes. Write a good paragraph or two (or more) summarizing relevant information. Finally, write a prediction saying what you think you might find based on the information you found.

Summary:

Think over information that you know and you have learned about volcanoes
Brainstorm on a piece of paper or organize notes
Look for trends or patterns or interesting bits of information
Generate a testable question
Write background information (a paragraph or two or more) summarizing relevant information
Write a prediction describing what you think you would find if you researched your question

To see what your hypothesis will be graded on, see the hypothesis section of the scoring guide, which is based on the State CIM Scoring Guide.
Download the Scoring Guide (PDF) for this assignment

Design an Experiment

When designing an experiment, look over your hypothesis and think about the information you know. Be sure that the experiment you design will provide data that can test your hypothesis. Since you will not actually be doing this experiment, don't worry about the feasibility of conducting the experiment you design. For instance, if you want to collect hot lava to study, that is fine as long as it helps you answer your hypothesis (did you know that some people actually do go to volcanoes to collect hot lava for research!).

Designing a good experiment takes time. A well-written procedure should be written clearly enough so that you or someone else can repeat the experiment in exactly the same way. I always tell students to imagine that you are mailing it to someone far away who will run the same experiment and whom you hope will get the same results.

It is usually helpful if your procedure is written in a step-by-step format, like a recipe. Number each step.

Writing Assignment - Part 2

1. Design an experiment to test your hypothesis.

2. Write a procedure with a series of steps that can be used to test your hypothesis.

3. Your experimental design will be graded using the procedure section of the scoring guide. Read it over to see if you think you have covered all the details.

When you are finished, click the link below to submit your answers to the instructor.

Submit your Hypothesis and Experiment Design

You have completed Unit 1. Go on to Unit 2, Ecology >>

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Page last updated October 13, 2003