Science

Science is the study of the natural world through observation and experiments.

Science is natural to us. You may not know it, but you do Science every day.

Example: Shooting a Basketball:

Imagine learning to score a basket. What do you do?

• First, you might watch how others shoot: their stance, grip, and technique
• Next, try it yourself, making adjustments based on what works or doesn't
• Over time, you develop a mental "model" of the best way to shoot hoops

You are doing things like: Observe the technique of others, Question why a method works, Guess (hypothesise) it is their wrist angle, Experiment by trying it yourself, etc.

The formal steps:

• Observe: Find something interesting
• Question: Make a question about it
• Hypothesis: Come up with a testable explanation or prediction
• Experiment: Do experiments to test the hypothesis, gathering data
• Analyze: Analyze the data to see if it supports the hypothesis or not
• Conclusion: Make conclusions (is the hypothesis supported or not)
• Communication: Share the results with others

So Science formalizes our natural approach, and then shares the findings, helping everyone build a better understanding of the world.

Science just does cooperatively what we all do naturally.

Theory

The strongest ideas in Science are called Theories.

A Scientific Theory has stood the test of time: it works well, has had many attempts trying to prove it wrong, and it still stands strong.

Even though it is robust, scientists keep challenging it. For instance, new research is still done into gravity!

Scientists love finding new facts that challenge old ideas, a chance to find out new things, which is fun and exciting

So when a scientist says "we have found a link between ..." or "there is new evidence that ..." listen to them! They are letting us know about new knowledge.

Scientists are naturally cautious, so asking them "are you sure?" can get the answer "I am not sure, but there is lots of evidence...", and this is truth.