Elodea & Snails Lab Report Rubric

Now that you have had the chance to analyze your results and discuss weaknesses/limitations and improvements, it's time to write a lab report. Your lab report is due Wednesday November 16th at the start of class. You must bring a printed copy to class. The rubric is posted below and it has also been emailed to you.  Click on the picture to make it larger.

Parts of a Lab Report

Today (or tomorrow for G period) we learned about the parts of a lab report.  The first PowerPoint below details the parts of a lab report.  The second PowerPoint shows you how to make an x y scatter plot in Excel.  Lastly, there is an image of the rubric that you will need to turn in when you submit your lab report.  You can not turn in a lab report without the rubric.  If you don't have the rubric and self-evaluation completed, your lab report will be late.

The Parts of a Lab Report

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Tips for working in Excel: Remember that your graph should display the average for the five beans in each group (0.0g salt, 0.5g salt etc).


Insert a blank row, below the data for bean 1e.  To do this, highlight row 7 (bean 2a), go to "Insert" and select "row."  A new row should appear directly below 1e.  The row in the screen shot is yellow, because I added the color to make it easier to see.

You can click on any of the images below to make them larger.

Directly below 0.41, type =average (as you start to do this a menu will appear and you can select AVERAGE.

 Now the cell (square) below 0.41 should look like the picture below.

 Highlight the data for which you want to take the average.  Once you have highlighted these numbers, press Enter (Return).

You should now have an 0.38 in the box where you originally typed =AVERAGE . Place the cursor so that it touches the lower right corner of the highlighted blue box.  A black plus sign (+) should appear.  Drag this symbol directly across the row and this will give you the averages for the rest of the data for group 1.

Once you have all of the averages completed, you are ready almost to make an X Y scatter plot.  You will want to open either a new spreadsheet or a new tab in Excel.  Make a data table that contains the averages (see below).

Now you are ready to click through the PowerPoint below and make an X Y scatter plot.

Making an xy scatter plot

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And just in case you 'misplaced' the rubric, you can see it (and print it) from the image below. 

Never Say Prove Again!

I thought we talked about this the last time you submitted lab reports, but perhaps we didn't or it slipped your mind...

In science you can never really PROVE anything; you can disprove a theory and you can find support for a hypothesis but you can't PROVE it. Hopefully this classy James Bond movie poster will help you remember.

Lab Report Rubric

In addition to being posted here, the lab report rubric has been emailed to students in a chart which includes as self evaluation section, so that they can check and make sure they have all the necessary components. Title 3 points Includes the environmental factors that were manipulated (1 pt). The parameter that was measured (1pt) The specific organism that was studied (1pt). Introduction 12 points Includes the observation (2 pts) Question that led to the hypothesis (2 pts) Relevant background information (5 pts) hypothesis (3pts) Materials and Methods 15 points Describes (not lists) how the experiment was conducted. The equipment used in the experiment is NOT listed, instead is part of the narrative. If well-known methods were used without changes, simply name the methods (e.g., standard microscopic techniques). Results 10 points Here the researcher presents summarized data for inspection using narrative text (4 pts) Tables and/or figures to display summarized data (6pts) ***If Raw data is present 4 points will be subtracted **** Formatting of tables/graphs 7 points All tables and/or graphs have… Title (1pt) A description explaining what is presented (4 pts) X and Y axis are labeled (2 pts) Discussion 13 points Here, the researcher interprets the data in terms of any patterns that were observed (5 pts) An explanation of how the results differed from those hypothesized (5 pts) Include at least 3 sources of error (3 pts) Conclusion 7 points This section simply states what the researcher thinks the data mean, and, as such, should relate directly back to the problem/question stated in the introduction. Acknowledgements 3 points In this section you should give credit to people who have helped you with the research or with writing the paper. If your work has been supported by a grant, you would also give credit for that in this section. Literature Cited (Will vary..max 5 points) This section lists, in alphabetical order by author, all published information that was referred to anywhere in the text of the paper. It provides the readers with the information needed should they want to refer to the original literature on the general problem. Spelling, Grammar & Formatting 5 points

Report is free from spelling and grammatical errors. All section headings are in bold and centered.