Designing Investigations

This resource, from the University of Nottingham, describes a number of investigations which could be carried out in heathland habitats. Heathlands are excellent habitats to use for designing and carrying out experiments. Plants are often relatively easy to identify when compared with other habitats and invertebrate communities are usually diverse. The suggested investigations encourage students to think about:

• Predictions, accuracy, reliability, dependent and independent variables, random and systematic errors, fair test/avoiding bias, validity.
• Presenting data, graphs, tables, continuous/discontinuous variables.
• Data and experimental design limitations.
• Drawing conclusions, and the implications of the findings.