Kwun Tong Government Secondary School

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Kwun Tong Government Secondary School

• Project Learning Briefing 4
• by
• Lau Kwok Chi

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Some project Ideas in science

• Investigations
• Some students heard that listening to Mozart
  might improve their math scores.
• Rats can swim, walk on tight ropes, and climb on
  almost anything. Which sex, male or female, can
  do better in the maze?

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• Many students felt sleepy in class. Does lack of
  sleep affect learning ?
• I wanted to know if a dog's mouth or a human's
  mouth was cleaner.

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• Design work
• The McDonalds bags for carrying foods and
  drinks are quite inconvenient. How to design some
  better bags for them ?
• I like reading while sitting on the sofa. But
  holding a large book for a long time is a
  trouble. Can I design a book holding machine ?

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• Question
• Could listening to music help improve the math
  score ?
• Hypothesis (??) a guess to the answer based on
  knowledge and experiences
• Listening to any kind of music could help
  someone relax. A relaxed people would do better
  in a math test.

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• Design of the test
• Aim Find out how X affects Y
• What is X in your test ?
• What is Y in your test ?
• X Listening to music
• Y Math scores

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• X Listening to rap music
• Which one would you choose ?
• 1. Listen to music or not
• 2. Listen to different lengths of music
• 1. Listen to music once
• 2. Listen to music everyday for a month
• 1. Ask 2 students to take part in the test,
  one listening to music, one not.
• 2. Ask 20 students to take part in the test, 10
  listening to music, 10 not.

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Y Math scores

• Which one would you choose ?
• A math test consisted of 5 M.C. questions
• A math test consisted of 50 M.C. questions

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How can you be sure that the differences in
math scores is a result of listening to music or
not ?

• It might be
• The students listening to music are already
  better in math
• Solution ?

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Which one would you choose ?

• Choose students having similar scores in past
  math tests
• 2. Give a math test to the students before and
  after they listen to music. Compare their change
  of scores.

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Design of an scientific investigation

• 1. Ask a clear question
• 2. Give a hypothesis to the question
• 3. To find out how X affects Y,
• how to manipulate X and measure Y ?
• how to make the results(Y) reliable ?
• Repeated trials, using large sample
• how to make sure that Y is resulted from
  X but not other factors
• Keep all other factors identical