The folks at MIT’s (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Lifelong Kindergarten group have done much more than just create a new graphical programming environment with Scratch, they have created a space where children from all over the world can share their creative ideas, learn how computer programs work, and much more. 

Just as important as selecting the proper notebook for recording your scientific experiments is how to take good notes.  Even an experienced scientist can benefit from reviewing good notebook keeping techniques from time to time.  In this How-To we talk about what should go into your notebook, what shouldn’t and how to make a good entry in your notebook.

Scientists have used fruit flies, or the scientific genus Drosophila, as an animal model for experimentation and the study of genetics for a long time for many reasons.  You too can catch, learn to raise and study Drosophila.  Fruit flies offer an exceptional opportunity to learn about insect lifecycles, how to maintain cultures of insects, genetics and animal behaviors.  [NOTE: I know that this is not a fruit fly, but Popillia japonica Newman]

We now know what to measure in order to make weather observations but what should we do with those measurements?  In this final part we activities that involve watching the weather.  These projects can be as short as a day or as long as a lifetime and can provide valuable information to meteorologists worldwide.

In this part we talk about three more weather observations that we can make, wind speed, direction and the duration of sunlight.  Making these measurements are a little more involved and good for someone looking for a project as commercial instrumentation is likely to be out of the price range of most people.  These measurements round out the observations that we have previously discussed and help with making a complete record of the daily weather.

We left off our discussion of the weather talking about recording rainfall and the temperature.  We continue our discussion talking about barometric pressure and relative humidity.  These two parameters can tell us much about the direction the weather is heading, whether we will have fair skies or rainy nights. 

If you watch the morning or evening news, unless there is a major tragedy occurring you probably are most interested in the weather forecast.  In our modern world the weather can have much larger effects than whether you have your picnic in the park or you take the umbrella with you when you go out.  Strong storms can cause travel delays and even devastate cities.  Too much or too little rain or cold can damage crops.  Even excessive heat can cause illness and death.  What can we learn about the weather?

We have all heard the phrase “A picture is worth a thousand words” before.  When we are presented with unfamiliar, large or otherwise cumbersome data it can be beneficial to construct a graph – a diagram – of the data to help us visualize patterns and trends in numbers.  By making a picture of the data we are able to use our visual senses to help our analytical mind interpret data.   Making graphs by hand is also a good kinesthetic exercise, allowing us to become more familiar with the information that we have collected.

I was taking a walk in the neighborhood this weekend, enjoying the cool breeze and thinking about the first experiment I would talk about on this site.  I was looking up and saw a vast sea of green above my head, the leaves on the trees lining the street, thinking about how the trees would look in a month or two and then it struck me, LITERALY, a leaf falling from a tree hit me in the face!.  This startled me for a moment, but it gave me an idea.  Just how many of these leaves are up there?  How much do all those leaves weigh? Are there any interesting patterns to how the leaves fall off the trees in the fall?  How does this change with the size of the tree?  This experiment is good for teaching about averages, sample sizes, and data collection.

Choosing the right notebook for your scientific experiments can make all the difference in how you feel about your experiments and how enjoyable the experiments can be.  What you need in a lab notebook depends on the level you are working at, the environment that you will be working in, the convenience and ease of use of the notebook, and the cost.