“Is the percentage of deformed frogs in pond A (your pond) greater than the percentage of
deformed frogs in other places?”
Figure 1.15: A pond with frogs. ( 14 )Research Existing Knowledge About the Topic
No matter what you observe, you need to find out what is already known about your topic.
For example, is anyone else doing research on deformed frogs? If yes, what did they find out?
Do you think that you should repeat their research to see if it can be duplicated? During
your research, you might learn something that convinces you to alter your question.
Construct a Hypothesis
A hypothesis is a proposed explanation of an observation. For example, you might hypoth-
esize that a certain pesticide is causing extra legs. If that’s true, then you canpredictthat
the water in a pond of healthy non deformed frogs will have lower levels of that pesticide.
That’sapredictionyoucantestbymeasuringpesticidelevelsintwosets ofponds, thosewith
deformed frogs and those with nothing but healthy frogs. A hypothesis is an explanation
that allows you to predict what results you will get in an experiment or survey.
The next step is to state the hypothesis formally. A hypothesis must be ”testable.”
Example:
After reading about what other scientists have learned about frog deformities, you predict
what you will find in your research. You construct a hypothesis that will help you answer
your first question.