Have you ever torn apart something and then couldn’t figure out how to get it back together again so that it worked? Worse, you knew that if you had only taken a few moments to think about the problem or jot something down, you know it would have taken you far less time to figure it out?
If you’ve used the Scientific Method, you know how cumbersome it can be at times, and to be completely honest, it really isn’t the right tool for every problem in science. While I’ve mentioned the UTP before, I haven’t actually given you the exact steps to follow… until now.
Here’s a great way to explain how this works: first, you need the right starting position. Imagine if I pulled a single card out of a deck of playing cards and asked you to guess what it is. At first, you might start by randomly guessing any card that comes to your ind, but after while, you forget which you have already guessed and which you can’t tried yet. Sound frustrating? It is. Sound inefficient? It is. This is what it’s like to do a science experiment without tracking your progress. It’s insane, and yet people do it all the time. No wonder they find science frustrating!
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Thanks! Useful steps for parents as well as kids! 😉
Thanks – I’ll fix those asap!
There are some typos in the last introductory paragraph. 🙂
This was very helpful -my son was trying to build an elevator in Minecraft and was getting frustrated. Using a simplified version of these steps, he was able to resolve the problem himself. Thank you! (But yes, a video would be great!)
I know I didn’t make a video for this one, and I’ve always meant to… just come back to it when you’re ready for another method on how to solve problems in science. I’ll probably have the video up then. 🙂
I don’t understand. TOO COMPLICATED!!!!!