Key Stage 2
Meaning
Evidence is the observations and measurements a scientist gets from an investigation.
About Evidence
- There are different kinds of evidence but scientists don't trust all of them.
- In science evidence must be repeatable. If you make an observation or measurement once, you should be able to do it again and again and the result shouldn't change.
- In science evidence must be reproducible. So if one person makes an observation or measurement, every other scientist in the world should be able to make the same observation. If they cannot then scientists don't accept it as good evidence.
Examples
Plants need water to live. - Plants in dry soil wilt and then die. Paper is flammable. - When you place a flame under paper the paper catches fire. Cats are mammals. - They have fur, they give birth do live babies, they feed their babies with milk.
Key Stage 3
Observations, readings or measurements a scientist will use to test whether a hypothesis is correct.
The Earth is Round: Observation - The tip of a mast always appears before the rest of the ship on an ocean. Measurements - On the 23rd of June a stick at the equator has no shadow. In Alexandria the shadow is 3cm long, in Paris it is 5cm long and in London the shadow is 8cm long.