1. Ask students to design an experiment to test a particular hypothesis. The hypothesis does not have to be reasonable, just testable, and you should make a distinction between the two.
2. Ask students to find examples of the use of the scientific method in their everyday lives, such as fixing dinner or determining how to dress for the day's weather or activities.
3. Have students search a week's newspapers for examples of using the scientific method in the newsósuch as testing consumer goods, reports on medical research, etc.óand discuss them in class.
4. Discuss the difference between scientific observations of the natural world and superstitions such as those associated with Friday the thirteenth, black cats, etc.
5. Discuss why it would be possible to prove a hypothesis
or theory wrong but not prove it correct. You might use the definition
of what a mammal is. A mammal was long accepted as characterized
by a combination of traits, including being warm-blooded, having
hair, nursing the young, and having the young born alive. This
was supported by all known mammals until the duckbill platypus
and spiny anteater were discovered. Since they lay eggs, rather
than having live-born young, this would have been sufficient to
disprove the theory of what constituted a mammal. The definition
of mammal had to be changed, or these two could not be classified
as mammals.