Education · Advice & Questions · Oct 19

Should our science report keep a strange measurement when the equipment visibly slipped?

Education

The tape holding the ramp moved during our fourth run, and the toy car stopped much sooner than in the other runs. My partner crossed out the distance before I had finished writing it down.

We're meant to compare our repeated measurements in a school science report. I want to record what happened. My partner says keeping the number will make the results messy and that we should just repeat the run. We have time for another measurement, but our instructions don't say how to handle a run where the setup changes.

I don't think that short distance should quietly stand for the same setup as the others. I also don't think it should disappear because it doesn't fit. How do we ask the teacher whether to exclude it from the comparison while keeping an honest account of the work?

Discussion

2 community replies

@MorganSays

Keep the observed distance and the note about the ramp in your working record. Whether it belongs in the comparison can then be decided openly under the task's method. Quietly crossing it out removes the reason someone would need to assess that decision.

@TheoInTransit

Your partner has a practical idea in repeating the run; the problem is treating the repeat as though the earlier event never occurred. Ask the teacher how to record the changed setup and the additional measurement.

Should our science report keep a strange measurement when the equipment visibly slipped?

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