Basic Skills

                  
     

Scientists must master certain basic skills, such as:

Measuring
Estimating
Hypothesising
Predicting
Graphing

There are many more...

You can practice some of your skills on these pages.

 

For a seemingly pointless demonstration of the power of scientists skills, look at the blades of grass on the right.

Now look at the field the horse where the horse is grazing.

Yes, you guessed it, the question is.....

... how many blades of grass does the horse eat each day?

... how many blades of grass are there in the field?

... how many blades of grass are there in the whole picture?

... how many blades of grass are there in the world?

grass blades

grass fields

    
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
     


Obviously these things can be estimated, though it might seem a little pointless. I once did the first two with a student whilst we were waiting for my car to be repaired on a field (!) trip. It required counting the blades of grass in a square 10cm by 10cm, which was a bit boring, but then we just multiplied up and got some really big numbers.

So, is this sort of thing pointless? Well, even in everyday life you quite often have to estimate things. How much break and milk should you buy for a family each week? How much paint will you need to paint your bedroom walls bright purple? Believe it or not, scientists can even estimate the number of atoms in the universe! So, it is good practice doing silly things like estimating how many grains of sand on the beach whilst on holiday!

    
         
         
         
         
         
         
           

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