What makes a science experiment so interesting is that you are able to use it to answer almost anything through logical and scientific reasoning. For example, lets take something that really has nothing to do with science and put it through a scientific experiment. Lately I have been really curious about meditation and what advantages and disadvantages it has on the human brain. In order to turn my curiosity into a scientific experiment, I will first need to pose a question. Posing a question is basically stating the problem using a scientific format including the key components needed to design an experiment. For example, What happens to the human brain after a month of practicing meditation? 
My next step in continuing this scientific experiment is forming a hypothesis, which is taking an educated guess on what will happen. Relating to my question, my hypothesis should be something like, if you practice proper meditation for a month then you will be able to decrease stress,improve memory, and increase concentration. Now that i have formed a hypothesis I will need to identify my variables. My independent variable here will be the meditation. My dependent variable will be the decrease of stress, improvement of memory, and increase of concentration. My control group will simply be someone without meditation practice for a month. 
Now I know what you’re thinking, “how in the world am I going to set this experiment up and record data?”. In order for me to set this experiment up I will need two people, gender does not matter. One person will be my control and will not be meditating while the other person will practice meditation for a month straight every day for 12-20 minutes. Both people will be required to take test throughout the experiment, one before the experiment, one during the experiment, and one after the experiment measuring where their stress,memory, and concentration lie. The stress test will include 10 questions of what is going on in your life and will provide you with a score at the end. This is a reliable source because it uses the Perceived Stress Scale and can be found at http://www.bemindfulonline.com/test-your-stress/. The memory will be tested through a short term memory test designed by washington edu. and can be found at https://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/stm0.html. Lastly the concentration test will recorded by a concentration test that measures how well you are able to concentrate in a minute, you will be able to find this on http://happybrain.org/concentration.php. I will record my data by comparing the scores of the test taken throughout experiment.These test should also indicate the changes in the brain. If the scores change throughout the experiment in a positive manner with the person practicing meditation then my hypothesis will be correct.
SOURCES
http://theialightcenter.myshopify.com/pages/meditation-relaxation
I like the experiment you came up with but putting the whole lesson on designing the experiment went a little of topic of what the blog should of been. The idea of having someone meditate for a month could relieve their stress level but how are you going to know that? instead of just having one person meditate how about you have a group of people meditate, so you have more results to see if it is true that meditating relieves stress and helps your memory. All around though its a good idea:)
ReplyDelete