ILTS 206 Sub-Area 3 Practice Question #14
A teacher has first-grade students roll a toy car down a ramp and and mark how far it rolls. To illustrate a basic principle of science that students can apply to their everyday life, the teacher has the children repeat the activity several times, increasing the angle of the ramp each time. The students observe that when they change the angle of the ramp the distance the car rolls also changes.
Changing the angle of the ramp as the activity is repeated will most likely help the children develop an appreciation for which of the following principles of science?
Correct Response: B
Cause and Effect is a type of relationship between events whereby a cause (an action) creates an effect (an outcome). Cause and effect is considered to be the backbone of the scientific method; it drives everything from our hypotheses to our conclusions in an experiment. The job of the scientific method is to tell us if a cause (or action) produces an observed effect.
In this example, the teacher is setting up an opportunity for children to observe the effect or outcome on the distance the toy car travels down the ramp when the children cause a change in the angle of the ramp.