Science Discovery Exploring, Describing, & Explaining the Natural World

Science Discovery Objectives

List examples of science fields.
Explain how science fields are distinguished from other fields of study.
Describe the process of science discovery, including examples of exploration, description, and explanation.

As you work through the four pages of this guide, you will be learning concepts, skills, and connections that will be assessed on Canvas.

The two types of assessments in this course are media pieces and quizzes. Each guide has one media piece and one quiz.

Media Pieces

Media pieces are introduced in each guide on one of the four webpages

Assignments can be completed with commonly available items

Media pieces can be added to the final Animal Portfolio (introduced next week in Module 2)

Quizzes

Four questions on each quiz; one for each outcome

Open notes and individual effort; do not work on quizzes with another person

Quiz responses can be added to the final Animal Portfolio (introduced next week in Module 2)

Start your Guide 1A Media Piece assignment here

Each guide has a different media piece.

Course Notes

In this section and the next three sections (webpages) of this Knowledge 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.

You are able (and recommended) to use your notes during each Guide’s quiz. This will be the only time you turn in your notes for grading, but most people continue to take detailed notes, since they can be used to jog memory during each quiz and can be added as personal work to the final Animal Portfolio (introduced next week in Module 2).

Include in your notes and upload to Canvas:

concepts from all four sections (web pages) in this 1A Knowledge guide.
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 (who we meet in the next section) 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? How are science fields different from other fields of study?

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:

How do two species of barnacles coexist on the same rock? (more on this in a later section on competition)
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.

The next section introduces the work of Charles Darwin, a naturalist who explored, described, and came up with an explanation that has changed the way scientists view the natural world.

Keep taking notes through the next three sections.

Check your knowledge. Can you:

list examples of science fields?
explain how science fields are distinguished from other fields of study?
describe the process of science discovery, including examples of exploration, description, and explanation?

Go back to the Knowledge Guide Overview

Go forward to the Natural Selection Page

Knowledge Guide Contents

Complete all four of these sections before taking the quiz and making your media piece.

Science Discovery - YOU ARE HERE