Science Discovery
Science Discovery
Science discovery is based on exploration, description, and explanation.
Learning Objective: Describe the process of science, including the role of exploration, description, and explanation in developing science knowledge.
Start Your Media Assignment here
In this section and the next four sections in this Discovery Guide, you will be taking notes on the concepts that are covered. At the end of the guide, you will upload these notes to Canvas as this guide’s media piece. You can take notes digitally on a device or on a piece of paper that you digitally photograph and upload: your choice.
Include in your notes:
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concepts from all five sections (web pages) in this guide.
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a combination of text, images, and icons. Your notes may be mostly text, but some type of image and use of icons needs to be included.
Sample Notes
This is a photo of notes Charles Darwin made about barnacles, marine organisms with jointed feeding appendages. There are images, text, and icons, in this case lines pointing to structures.
Your notes on this course may be more text or images, depending on your style. For this assignment you will try to use all three notes components.
Start your notes here
What is science?
Take a moment and write down the names of three different science fields in your notes.
hint: you may have taken a few of these courses in high school.
What did you come up with? Common responses include: physics, chemistry, geology, and of course what we are here for, biology. Less common, but correct responses would also include: mathematics, logic, social sciences, environmental sciences, and more.
Some of the sciences are shown here in roughly chronological order from logic and mathematics through a few of the newest fields that integrate multiple disciplines.
Why are these sciences and not something else?
Science involves a specific process to gather knowledge about observable natural phenomena.
Let’s dissect this.
“Science involves a specific process…” This is science discovery, more on this in a moment.
“…to gather knowledge…” Science knowledge includes facts, laws, and theories, covered in the next section.
“…about observable natural phenomena.” We have to see it, smell it, touch it, or somehow observe something in nature directly or indirectly. More on this in the section on observation.
The process of science discovery includes exploration, description, and explanation.
Exploration
Investigating new (to you) natural phenomena. Can be a new location, or a new way of viewing familiar surroundings.
Description
Providing accurate details about a natural phenomenon. Can include a portrait of an organism, or the steps of a process, like a bud opening on a tree.
Explanation
Providing information on how or why something happens. Can be a simple cause and effect, or a much more detailed process of steps with complex variables.
Let’s see science discovery in action with a trip to the pacific coast.
We (Lesley & Mark) live in Corvallis Oregon. If we take highway 20 due west for 50 miles (about an hour), it ends in Newport, directly on the coast.
Nye beach in Newport, OR is a popular tourist destination
There is a habitat that many people just walk past instead of exploring…
This gives you an idea of scale, Mark is taking a photo.
Exploration is investigating new phenomena, in this case, organisms on a micro (small) habitat, a rock that is exposed at low tide.
On the rock are numerous organisms. The next step is to accurately describe what is observed.
Barnacles
Some of the organisms are barnacles. There are small (less than 1″ diameter) cone-shaped mineral structures with animals inside.
Different Species
The different shapes of the mineral cones, different sizes, and groupings suggest that there may be two or more different species on the rock.
The next step is to explain what you are describing.
There is a lot to explain. For example:
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How do two species of barnacles coexist on the same rock? (more on this in a later section on competition)
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Where did the barnacles come from, not just these organisms (later section on reproduction), but also the species themselves (section on speciation).
Explanation may take more detailed examination and description, for example, viewing the barnacles underwater. Experimentation may be necessary to determine whether explanations accurately predict what is occurring in nature.
In this course you will explore, describe, and explain, as well as learn from others who have gained knowledge through science discovery.
In the next section you will meet Charles Darwin who
explored, described, and explained changes that occur in species over time.
Check your knowledge – Science Discovery
Review your notes. Do you understand the topic well enough to be able to teach the three components of science discovery to someone else? If so, move forward to the next page.
Learning Objective:
Describe the process of science, including the role of exploration, description, and explanation in developing science knowledge.
Go back to the Discovery Guide Overview
Go forward to the Darwin Page
Discovery Guide Pages
Complete all five of these sections before taking the quiz and submitting your notes.
Module Index
Links to 10 Modules
This Module
1: Where do I go?
Products Information
1A: Quiz & Media
