Keeping a lab notebook is a vital skill for any scientist and beginners to the subject often underestimate its importance.

Why keep a journal

Learn to think like a scientist. In this collection we demonstrate a series of hands-on experiments that you can carry out in your own kitchen. We'll explore some key aspects of life on Earth such as why water is so important to all living organisms, how matter behaves at different temperatures and what are the best conditions for life to flourish. The experiments start off simply, with baking a potato to destruction, but by the end you will be isolating and extracting the DNA of a kiwi fruit! Along the way you’ll learn some key skills that will develop your scientific thinking – like what to look for when designing an experiment, why you should keep a scientific journal and how to report your results. By the end of the collection you will be able to think about how to investigate the world around you and find out how it works. These materials form part of the Open University free courses Basic Science: Understanding Experiments and Basic Science: Understanding Numbers available from OpenLearn. http://www.open.edu/openlearn/free-courses

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Why keep a journal

Why keep a journal

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