How to Think Like a Scientist: Answering Questions by the Scientific Method

Every day you answer questions-dozens, even hundreds of them. How do you find the answers to questions? How can you be sure your answers are correct?

Scientists use questions to learn about things. Scientists have developed a way of helping make sure they answer questions correctly. It is called the scientific method. The scientific method can help you find answers to many of the questions you are curious about.

What kind of food does your dog like best? Is your sister more likely to help you with your homework if you say please? Can throwing a dead snake over a tree branch make it rain? The scientific method can help you answer these questions and many others.

Stephen Kramer's invitation to think like a scientist, illustrated by Felicia Bond's humorous and appealing pictures, will receive enthusiastic response from young readers, scientist and nonscientist alike.

Uses questions about hypothetical situations to introduce the process of thinking according to scientific method.

Every day you answer questions-dozens, even hundreds of them. How do you find the answers to questions? How can you be sure your answers are correct?

Scientists use questions to learn about things. Scientists have developed a way of helping make sure they answer questions correctly. It is called the scientific method. The scientific method can help you find answers to many of the questions you are curious about.

What kind of food does your dog like best? Is your sister more likely to help you with your homework if you say please? Can throwing a dead snake over a tree branch make it rain? The scientific method can help you answer these questions and many others.

Stephen Kramer's invitation to think like a scientist, illustrated by Felicia Bond's humorous and appealing pictures, will receive enthusiastic response from young readers, scientist and nonscientist alike.

School Library Journal

Gr 3-5 After three examples of how you can get the wrong answer to a question by not using all the available information, depending too much on other people's answers, or wanting a certain result, Kramer presents the scientific method as a way of getting correct answers more often and explains how to set up an experiment using a control group. He bases his book on situations that children are likely to run into in their daily lives. This is a pleasant book with an open format; an amusing half-tone cartoon on almost every page illustrates the child-oriented experiments and supports the light tone of the book. The book explains the scientific method in greater depth than most encyclopedia articles, and suggests more everyday applications than books (generally for older readers) that are specifically intended to help with science fair projects, such as How Fast Do Your Oysters Grow? (Messner, 1982) by Norman Smith. Margaret L. Chatham, formerly at Smithtown Lib . , N.Y.

Stephen P. Kramer has had a lifelong interest in natural history. After receiving degrees in biology from Pacific Lutheran University and Northern Arizona University, he taught junior high school science for four years on the Navajo Reservation. He spends his time now as a househusband and writer. His first book for children was Getting Oxygen: What do you do if you're cell twenty-two? Mr. Kramer lives with his wife and two sons in Vancouver, Washington.