hypothesis scientific theory scientific law worksheet

Scientific Laws and Theories

Scientific Laws and Theories teaches students about the differences between a law and a theory when it comes to science. Students will also learn how to differentiate among facts, beliefs, and hypotheses. They will be able to give examples of each of these five concepts.

There are additional suggestions in the “Options for Lesson” section of the classroom procedure page that you could incorporate into the lesson plan. For example, one idea is to divide students into five groups and assign each group one of the five concepts from the lesson to research further.

Description

Additional information, what our scientific laws and theories lesson plan includes.

Lesson Objectives and Overview: Scientific Laws and Theories introduces students to difference between a law and a theory in relation to the field of science. Students will discover what a fact is, what a hypothesis is, and what a belief is. They will learn how to differentiate among these five concepts and give examples of each. This lesson is for students in 5th grade and 6th grade.

Classroom Procedure

Every lesson plan provides you with a classroom procedure page that outlines a step-by-step guide to follow. You do not have to follow the guide exactly. The guide helps you organize the lesson and details when to hand out worksheets. It also lists information in the yellow box that you might find useful. You will find the lesson objectives, state standards, and number of class sessions the lesson should take to complete in this area. In addition, it describes the supplies you will need as well as what and how you need to prepare beforehand.

Options for Lesson

You can check out the “Options for Lesson” section of the classroom procedure page for additional suggestions for ideas and activities to incorporate into the lesson. For the activity, students could work alone or in groups instead of in pairs. In addition, you could add a second or third scenario. Another option is to haves students create posters that show the differences among each of the scientific terms. You could also divide students into five groups, assign each group a term, and have the students research it further and find more examples. Another suggestion is to invite a scientist to the class to speak with students and answer their questions. One more options is to use current science content and have students identify facts, beliefs, theories, hypotheses, and laws from the content.

Teacher Notes

The teacher notes page provides an extra paragraph of information to help guide the lesson. It suggests teaching this lesson in conjunction with others that relate to the scientific method, processing skills, and so on. You can use the blank lines to write down any other ideas or thoughts you have about the topic as you prepare.

SCIENTIFIC LAWS AND THEORIES LESSON PLAN CONTENT PAGES

Laws, theories, facts, and more.

The Scientific Laws and Theories lesson plan contains four pages of content. Science concepts can often be quite simple or extremely difficult to understand. Students have probably learned many science-related concepts and ideas, such as the three main states of matter. They might understand that there are three states and be able to identify examples of each. But they may not understand why some matter can turn into a solid or why other substances can never turn into a liquid or gas.

There are a lot of scientific concepts, and we can’t label them all the same way. Scientists label their ideas as facts, theories, hypotheses, laws, or beliefs, depending on the traits or qualities of the idea. All these terms carry a different meaning in the field of science, and all scientists need to understand them.

Facts, Laws, and Hypotheses

The lesson provides a chart that explains each of the five labels. First, students will learn what a fact is in the field of science. Facts are basic statements that scientists have proven to be true through experiments and observation. If we observe rain from the sky, it is a fact that it’s raining. All facts are true under specific conditions, but in science, they may later be proven false when retested using better instruments or more thorough observation.

A law is a logical relationship between two or more things based on a variety of facts and proven hypotheses. Laws are often shown using mathematical formulas or statements of how two or more quantities relate to each other. Newton’s law of gravity, for example, predicts the behavior of a dropped object but does not explain why the object drops.

In science class, students often start an experiment with a hypothesis, an educated guess about what will happen and what they might observe. A hypothesis is a prediction of cause and effect. Additional experimentation and observation will either support or disprove a hypothesis. For instance, we might guess that all cleaning products are the same. After testing this idea out, we learn that some products are actually better than others, proving our hypothesis false.

Theories and Beliefs

A theory is the “why” in science. Theories explain why certain laws and facts exist, and we can test theories to determine their accuracy. Repeated testing can support a theory, and that theory will remain valid if there is no evidence to dispute it. Many times, we can label a theory as an accepted hypothesis.

One example of a theory is the idea that a large crater on Earth might have been caused by a meteor strike. However, this idea is not a proven fact, but many accept it to be true based on collected evidence. On the other hand, it’s possible that we can disprove the theory and find it to be false.

Finally, students will learn about beliefs. In science, a belief is a statement that is not scientifically provable in the same way as facts, laws, hypotheses, and theories. Beliefs that we proved to be false today can later be proven true by someone else using scientific experimenting and observation.

An example of a belief is the scenario in which many people believe there are certain lucky numbers, and the position of the planets affect how people behave. However, we cannot prove either of these beliefs to be true. It’s still possible that someone someday could change either of these beliefs into a fact after experimenting and observing.

Understanding the Difference

The difference between a theory, a law, a fact, and a hypothesis is subtle. Theories, laws, and facts often start out as as hypothesis when someone originally proposes it. After going through rigorous testing, experimentation, and observation, it’s possible that the hypothesis becomes one of the other three.

In addition, a fact may be true with certain conditions. For example, water boils at 212 °F at sea level, but at higher altitudes, it boils at lower temperatures. Every fact will depend on the specific circumstances under which a measurement is made. It is important to understand the differences.

How can you tell if a statement is a fact, law, hypothesis, theory, or belief? Facts are the statements that everyone knows to be true through direct observation. In science, we base facts on many lines of evidence. For example, at one time, it was a hypothesis that the planets circled the sun. With more observation and experimentation over time (and with better instruments), we learned that this was true, a fact. Newton discovered the law of gravity but could not explain why it worked. But others have explained it with a theory as to why it works. A theory will not become a law but explains the law.

The bottom of this page provides examples of each of the five categories of scientific concepts. Water freezes at 32°F, matter comprises atoms, and black holes exist. These are all facts. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. Energy cannot be created or destroyed in a chemical reaction. These are all laws.

In the hypothesis group are three more statements. The sun will rise tomorrow morning. The universe was created at the big bang. Eating more vegetables will help a person lose weight. Theories include the idea that plate tectonics explain the movement of the continents. Natural selection explains the concept of evolution. Microorganisms cause many diseases.

Finally, humans were created separately from all other life on Earth. There are no such things as ghosts. The number 13 is unlucky, but the number 7 is lucky. These three statements all fall into the beliefs category.

SCIENTIFIC LAWS AND THEORIES LESSON PLAN WORKSHEETS

The Scientific Laws and Theories lesson plan includes three worksheets: an activity worksheet, a practice worksheet, and a homework assignment. Each one will reinforce students’ comprehension of lesson material in different ways and help them demonstrate when they learned. Use the guidelines on the classroom procedure page to determine when to distribute each worksheet to the class.

IMAGINATION ACTIVITY WORKSHEET

Students will work with a partner for the activity. The worksheet provides five separate prompts regarding different scenarios about astronauts visiting a new planet. Students will collaborate and share their ideas and thoughts with each other as they develop the answers for the prompts. The five prompts relate to either a hypothesis, fact, law, theory, or belief.

SCIENTIFIC LAWS AND THEORIES PRACTICE WORKSHEET

The practice worksheet divides into two sections. On the first section, students will match 15 explanations to the correct term. There is a word bank with five terms to choose from. Students will use each one three times. The second section requires students to decide whether each of five statements is true (T) or false (F).

FACT, THEORY, HYPOTHESIS, LAW, OR BELIEF HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT

For the homework assignment, students will look at 20 statements. They must decide if the statement represents a fact (F), theory (T), hypothesis (H), law (L), or belief (B). The worksheet mentions that they can use the internet or other resources for help if necessary.

Worksheet Answer Keys

At the end of the lesson plan document are answer keys for the practice and homework worksheets. The correct answers are in red to make it easy to compare them to studnets’ work. If you choose to administer the lesson pages to your students via PDF, you will need to save a new file that omits these pages. Otherwise, you can simply print out the applicable pages and keep these as reference for yourself when grading assignments.

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Scientific Hypothesis, Model, Theory, and Law

Understanding the Difference Between Basic Scientific Terms

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Words have precise meanings in science. For example, "theory," "law," and "hypothesis" don't all mean the same thing. Outside of science, you might say something is "just a theory," meaning it's a supposition that may or may not be true. In science, however, a theory is an explanation that generally is accepted to be true. Here's a closer look at these important, commonly misused terms.

A hypothesis is an educated guess, based on observation. It's a prediction of cause and effect. Usually, a hypothesis can be supported or refuted through experimentation or more observation. A hypothesis can be disproven but not proven to be true.

Example: If you see no difference in the cleaning ability of various laundry detergents, you might hypothesize that cleaning effectiveness is not affected by which detergent you use. This hypothesis can be disproven if you observe a stain is removed by one detergent and not another. On the other hand, you cannot prove the hypothesis. Even if you never see a difference in the cleanliness of your clothes after trying 1,000 detergents, there might be one more you haven't tried that could be different.

Scientists often construct models to help explain complex concepts. These can be physical models like a model volcano or atom  or conceptual models like predictive weather algorithms. A model doesn't contain all the details of the real deal, but it should include observations known to be valid.

Example: The  Bohr model shows electrons orbiting the atomic nucleus, much the same way as the way planets revolve around the sun. In reality, the movement of electrons is complicated but the model makes it clear that protons and neutrons form a nucleus and electrons tend to move around outside the nucleus.

A scientific theory summarizes a hypothesis or group of hypotheses that have been supported with repeated testing. A theory is valid as long as there is no evidence to dispute it. Therefore, theories can be disproven. Basically, if evidence accumulates to support a hypothesis, then the hypothesis can become accepted as a good explanation of a phenomenon. One definition of a theory is to say that it's an accepted hypothesis.

Example: It is known that on June 30, 1908, in Tunguska, Siberia, there was an explosion equivalent to the detonation of about 15 million tons of TNT. Many hypotheses have been proposed for what caused the explosion. It was theorized that the explosion was caused by a natural extraterrestrial phenomenon , and was not caused by man. Is this theory a fact? No. The event is a recorded fact. Is this theory, generally accepted to be true, based on evidence to-date? Yes. Can this theory be shown to be false and be discarded? Yes.

A scientific law generalizes a body of observations. At the time it's made, no exceptions have been found to a law. Scientific laws explain things but they do not describe them. One way to tell a law and a theory apart is to ask if the description gives you the means to explain "why." The word "law" is used less and less in science, as many laws are only true under limited circumstances.

Example: Consider Newton's Law of Gravity . Newton could use this law to predict the behavior of a dropped object but he couldn't explain why it happened.

As you can see, there is no "proof" or absolute "truth" in science. The closest we get are facts, which are indisputable observations. Note, however, if you define proof as arriving at a logical conclusion, based on the evidence, then there is "proof" in science. Some work under the definition that to prove something implies it can never be wrong, which is different. If you're asked to define the terms hypothesis, theory, and law, keep in mind the definitions of proof and of these words can vary slightly depending on the scientific discipline. What's important is to realize they don't all mean the same thing and cannot be used interchangeably.

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Theories, Hypotheses, and Laws: Definitions, examples, and their roles in science

by Anthony Carpi, Ph.D., Anne E. Egger, Ph.D.

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Scientific Laws, Theories, and Hypotheses 1

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Theory or Law? _________ of Thermodynamics: Matter can never be created or destroyed. Tells what happens with matter.

• 2. Multiple Choice Edit 15 minutes 1 pt Evolution is the widely held notion that all life is related and has descended from a common ancestor: the birds and the bananas, the fishes and the flowers  -- all related That is, complex creatures evolve from more simplistic ancestors naturally over time. Fact Theory Law
• 3. Multiple Choice Edit 15 minutes 1 pt A testable statement about the natural world that can be used to build more complex inferences and explanations. To be a hypothesis, a statement must contain a possible explanation. Fact Theory Law Hypothesis
• 4. Multiple Choice Edit 15 minutes 1 pt In science, a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses. Fact Theory Law Hypothesis
• 5. Multiple Choice Edit 15 minutes 1 pt You observe that, upon waking up each morning, your trashcan is overturned and trash is spread around the yard. You propose that raccoons are responsible. Is this fact, a law, a theory, or a hypothesis? Fact Law Theory Hypothesis
• 6. Multiple Choice Edit 15 minutes 1 pt Laws tells us that it happens but doesn’t describe how or why. True False
• 7. Multiple Choice Edit 15 minutes 1 pt Scientific theories are based on general assumptions of how systems work. mathematical principles that can be proven true. large amounts of data collected over time. observations from within only one scientific discipline.
• 8. Multiple Choice Edit 15 minutes 1 pt Scientists all over the world are sure that all matter is made of atoms.  All of their investigations point to the fact that this is true.  Unfortunately, there is no way to know 100% for sure if atoms are real.  This means that the idea of atoms is a _________. question hypothesis theory law

Can you disprove a hypothesis in a single experiment?

Can you disprove a scientific theory based on a single experiment?

Theories are based on thousands of supported hypothesis and tons of physical evidence.

A hypothesis must be based on measurable testable criteria. You can not measure "best", "most fun" or "prettiest".

If you can set up an experiment to determine if it is true or not, you are most likely testing out a ___________.

This is often expressed in a mathematical equation like E=MC 2 or F = M x A

Scientific Law

Scientific Theory

All of these

If you have a situation where a scientist is going to run an experiment, you are most likely looking at a __________.

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