Hypothesizing in Science—continued
Formulating and Testing the Hypothesis
The purpose of the hypothesis is to give focus to an investigation. Once the hypothesis has been formulated, an experiment is designed to test it. An example of a question that could form the basis of a hypothesis is "Which fertilizer is better at making pea plants grow?" The hypothesis might be "If two fertilizers affect pea plant growth rate differently, then one will be more effective in increasing plant growth than the other." An experiment to test the hypothesis would be to grow five plants in Fertilizer A, grow five plants in Fertilizer B, and grow five plants with no fertilizer at all (control group). You need to keep all other variables the same (e.g. amount of water, amount of light, amount of darkness, amount of soil, composition of soil, temperature, etc.).
