Natural Science - Year I
Unit 0: Welcome to Natural Science Year One
Lab Assignment for Unit 0
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Natural Science Unit 0 Laboratory Activity:
Expectations and Report Formats
Goal: To identify the requirements for a good lab report
Materials and Equipment:
- Lab equipment requirements: see the list of lab equipment needed for this course. You will need to plan ahead and acquire equipment and materials to keep up with lab assignments.
- Check out the list of online suppliers different types of equipment and materials. Other sources of equipment and materials are your pet store and the local college lab, which may be willing to let you rent or buy equipment they no longer need. Hobby groups (astronomy, electrons, robotics clubs) also often have equipment their members may want to sell.
Procedure:
Read the entry on Lab Work for this course.
Then read the following sections in the Student Survival Guide:
- Doing Labs
- Writing Lab Reports
Be sure that you understand the requirements for lab credit:
- How many labs are required to receive lab credit for the course?
- What is the lab permission letter? Where do you find it? Where do you send it?
- Where are the safety procedures located? Did you read them carefully? What should you do if you don't understand how they apply to a particular lab?
- What equipment should you have to do most of the labs for the course?
- Where can you find suppliers for the equipment?
- What are the three kinds of direct research you can do?
- What are the five parts you should include in each lab report?
Data Analysis:
Consider the different ways you can present data: lists, drawings, graphs, tables. If you have access to a spreadsheet, experiment with generating different kinds of graphs from a table of (made up) data.
Report:
Make notes on each part of the lab report, and especially on anything that doesn't make sense to you. Bring any questions you have on lab expectations to class.
A good lab report data section includes all your raw data measurements, sample calculations, graphs if it is important to show a trend in the data, the results of your calculations, and a summary of the importance of the data to your goal.
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