i’m trying to write a lab report and idk how to figure out which is which in the experiment
In: Biology
The independent variable in a science experiment is the one the scientist changes. The dependent variable is the one the scientist wants to measure.
Let’s say you were growing potted vegetable plants — cucumbers, let’s say — and you wanted to know how much water they needed to grow best. You knew how much sun they needed, how often to water, all that, but not how *much* water to give the plant each time you watered.
So you get a single package of seeds from the store, split it between three pots, and put them somewhere in your house where they get the sunlight they need. You know the watering schedule too. You want to see the effects of water amounts A, B, and C.
To get your answer, you might use a marker to write on the pots how many milliliters of water to give each plant at a time. Then, each time you water your plants, you carefully measure out the three amounts of water you determined earlier. You do this for some set amount of time, say two months¹, and then you observe the growth.
Assuming you controlled for as much as you possibly could, the only thing *you* changed was the amount of water you gave each plant. Nature did the rest, and that will have shown as differing growth.
Independent variable (you changed): water amount.
Dependent variable (changed **depending** on what you did): differing plant growth.
Does that make sense?
¹ I have no idea how long cucumbers really need. Just pretend I do
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