Assignment

| SCI207 Using the Week Three Rough Draft Template Hello, SCI207 students. This week, you'll be working on your week three rough draft for your final paper. To help you complete the rough draft, you'll use the template located in the week three assignment section. Using this template will not only assure that you are following the right format for your rough draft, but it will also clarify how to put together your rough draft, significantly reducing confusion and the amount of time it takes to complete the rough draft. Let's get into some more details about each section of the template. First, read the directions in purple at the top of the document, particularly the part about reviewing the final lab report instructions. Don't skip over this section. Each of these points will clarify what to include in your rough draft submission. Finally, make sure you delete these directions before turning in your paper. The first section of your rough draft will be the introduction. As you can see, this is already laid out for you in three sections- background, objective, and hypothesis- each with specific directions about what to write in each body paragraph. Make sure you read through each section line by line, paying special attention to where your sources go and where your hypothesis should be at this point. The next section, materials and methods, will detail what you use in your exponent, as well as how you carried out the experiment. The directions in this part of the template will help you avoid two common pitfalls- too much information, or not enough information. Read through these recommendations to find the right balance for your draft. The next section results will include two subsections- tables and body paragraph. The directions in the table section will assure that you are formatting the table in the correct format, and using the right units of measurement. You will follow this up with a paragraph that describes the results. Pay special attention to this sentence. No personal opinion should be included. This can be tricky to do, but think to yourself, just facts, no opinion, and you'll be on the right path. Next will be the discussion. This section of the template breaks down the discussion into three paragraphs to make it easier for you to write a concise yet meaningful discussion. Take a deep breath and work through each part. You will notice that this section includes questions that encourage critical thinking and reflection. Take time to consider these questions and how they relate to your findings. What do your results mean? How does your study relate to other research that has been done on this topic? In this section, you will also write about errors in your scientific experiment. Even the most precise scientific experiments have an error rate, so don't be afraid to discuss this. It's normal. In the third paragraph, you will be asked to propose future exponents you might conduct based upon the results of this one. Scientists often find that each new exponent raises more questions than it answers. What new questions can you think of based on your own results? Finally, you'll work on your conclusion and references. The conclusion is simple. What main message would you like people to take away from this report? You may want to play around with your conclusion over the next few weeks until you can concisely summarize the main takeaways. Don't forget to include your references in APA format. If you need help of formatting, you can go to the Ashford University Writing Center to get resources or to reach out to a writing consultant. You can access the Writing Center directly from the Science 207 classroom. Just scroll down the menu along the left side of the page and click the tab labeled Writing Center.

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Name

SCI 207: Our Dependence upon the Environment

Instructor

Date

*This template will provide you with the details necessary to begin a quality Final Lab Report. Utilize this template to complete the Week 3 Rough Draft of the Final Lab Report and ensure that you are providing all of the necessary information and proper format for the assignment. Before you begin, please note the following important information:

1. Carefully review the Final Lab Report instructions before you begin this assignment.

2. The Final Lab Report should cover only the first experiment (Drinking Water Quality) from your Week Two Lab.

3. As you plan your final paper, think about how you can present a fact-based story about water quality issues. For example, consider what common concerns might be regarding water quality, and the role drinking water standards play in protecting our water supplies.

4. For further help, see the Sample Final Lab Report for an example of a final product on a different topic.

5. You may simply replace the text following the bold terms with the appropriate outline information to complete this assignment. Make sure to pay close attention to the information called for and provide all necessary material. Please delete this purple text before submitting your rough draft.

Include cover page

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Introduction

Body Paragraph #1 - Background: The rough draft of the introduction should describe the background of water quality and related issues using cited examples. You should include scholarly sources in this section to help explain why water quality research is important to society. When outlining this section, make sure to at least list relevant resources in APA format that will be used in the final paper to develop the background for your experiment.

Body Paragraph # 2 - Objective: The rough draft of the introduction should also contain the objective for your study. This objective is the reason why the experiment is being done. Your rough draft should provide an objective that describes why we want to know the answer to the questions we are asking. Make sure the objective ties back to ideas you discussed in the Background, above.

Body Paragraph # 3 - Hypothesis: Finally, the introduction should end with your hypothesis. This hypothesis should be the same one that you posed before you began your Drinking Water Quality experiment. You may reword it following feedback from your instructor to put it in better hypothesis format; however, you should not adjust it to reflect the “right” answer. You will not lose points if your hypothesis was wrong; scientists often revise their hypotheses based on scientific evidence following an experiment. In addition to stating the hypothesis, offer your rationale for it; in other words, why did you make that particular hypothesis?

Materials and Methods

Body Paragraph # 1: The rough draft of the materials and methods section should provide a brief description of the specialized materials used in your experiment and how they were used. This section needs to summarize the instructions with enough detail so that an outsider who does not have a copy of the lab instructions knows what you did. However, this does not mean writing every little step like “dip the phosphate test strip in the water, then shake the test strips,” these steps can be simplified to read “we used phosphate test strips to measure phosphate levels in parts per million”, etc. This section should be written in the past tense and in your own words and not copied and pasted from the lab manual. Think cookbook recipe here; you should explain enough of what you did for others to repeat the experiment, but with nothing extra added.

Results

Tables: The rough draft of the results section should include all the tables used in your experiment. All values within the tables should be in numerical form and contain units (except pH, which does not have any). For instance, if measuring the amount of chloride in water you should report your measurement as 2 mg/L or 0 mg/L, not as two or none.

Body Paragraph # 1: The rough draft of the results section should also highlight important results in paragraph form, referring to the appropriate tables when mentioned. This section should only state the results; no personal opinions should be included. A description of what the results really mean should be saved for the discussion. For example, you may report, 0mg/L of chlorine were found in the water, but should avoid personal opinions and interpretations such as, “No chlorine was found in the water, showing it to be cleaner than the other samples.”

Discussion

Body Paragraph #1 - Hypothesis: The rough draft of this section should interpret your data and provide conclusions. Start by discussing if your hypothesis was confirmed or denied and how you know this. Then consider some of the implications of your results. Given the chemical differences you may have noted between the water samples, are any of the differences causes for concern?

Body Paragraph # 2 - Context: The rough draft of your discussion should also relate your results to bigger water concerns and challenges. For example, based on your experiment you might discuss how various bottled water companies use different filtration systems. Or, you could discuss the billion dollar bottled water industry. For example, do you think it is worth it to buy bottled water? Why or why not? Your outline should at least list some of the resources that you plan to utilize in your final paper to put your results into context.

Body Paragraph #3 – Variables and Future Experiments: Finally, the rough draft of your results section should also address any possible factors that affected your results, such as taking measurements over two different days instead of all at once. If possible sources of error were present, how might you control for these in the future? You should also propose some new questions that have arisen from your results and what kind of experiment(s) might be devised to answer these questions.

Conclusions

Body Paragraph #1: This section of your rough draft should briefly summarize the key points of your paper. What main message would you like people to take way from this report?

References

Include at least 2 scholarly and 2 highly credible sources as well as your lab manual, in APA format.