Name ______Block ______
Practice Problems
Flower Power
SpongeBob loves to garden and wants to grow lots of pink flowers for his pal Sandy. He
bought a special Flower Power fertilizer to see if it will help plants produce more flowers. He plants two plants of the same size in separate containers with the same amount of potting soil. He places both plants in a sunny window and waters one plant with plain water and waters one plant with fertilizer and water. He waters each plant once a day.
1. What is the independent variable? ______
2. What is the dependent variable? ______
3. What are 3 constants to make sure he gets accurate results?
______
______
______
Squidward’s Symphony
Squidward loves playing his clarinet and believes it attracts more jellyfish than any other instrument he has played. In order to test his hypothesis, Squidward played a song on his clarinet for a total of 5 minutes and counted the number of jellyfish he saw in his front yard. He played the song a total of 3 times on his clarinet and repeated the experiment using a flute and a guitar. He also recorded the number of jellyfish he observed when he was not playing an instrument. The results are shown in the chart.
Trial No Music Clarinet Flute Guitar
1 5 17 5 12
2 3 13 8 18
3 2 12 9 10
1. What is the independent variable? ______
2. What is the dependent variable? ______
3. Based on the data, what should Squidward’s conclusion be?
4. Why was it important for Squidward to play the same song with each instrument?
Super Bubbles
Patrick and SpongeBob love to blow bubbles! Patrick found some Super Bubble Soap at Sail-Mart. The ads claim that Super Bubble Soap will produce bubbles that are twice as big as bubbles made with regular bubble soap. Patrick and SpongeBob made up two samples of bubble solution. One sample was made with 5 oz. of Super Bubble Soap and 5 oz. of water, while the other was made with the same amount of water and 5 oz. of regular bubble soap. Patrick and SpongeBob used their favorite bubble wands to blow 10 different bubbles and did their best to measure the diameter of each one.
What is the independent variable? ______
What is the dependent variable? ______
What would be 2 constants for their experiment?
______
______
The results were:
Super Bubble = 15.1 cm Regular Soap = 11.5 cm
Were the Super Bubbles twice as big as the regular bubbles? ______
What are some things that could affect the results of this experiment? ______
Sandy’s Surprise
Sandy wanted to grow a new plant to give to her friend SpongeBob. She decided to turn it into an experiment to find out if different colors of light would affect a plant’s growth. One plant had red light, another blue light, another green light, and another regular white light. She watered them every day with the same amount of water and put them all on a table away from the window.
What is Sandy’s experiment? (question)
What is the IV? ______
What is the DV? ______
After 2 weeks, these were her results:
White light / Blue light / Red light / Green light4 cm growth / 2 cm growth / 2.5 cm growth / 3.1 cm growth
What is Sandy’s conclusion?
______
______
Should Sandy use the same type of plant for each light? Why or why not? ______