The National Science Education Standards Science as Inquiry Standard states middle school “students should develop general abilities, such as systematic observation, making accurate measurements, and identifying and controlling variables.” The Standards acknowledge this can be challenging for students. Resources highlighted below focus on helping learners acquire knowledge of variables in scientific inquiry.

Environmental Inquiry: Tips for Planning an Experiment
Although directed at high school students, the brief and concise descriptions of various methods of science will be useful to teachers and possibly middle school students, too. Topics include Ask a question, Form your hypothesis and Choose the variables.

Experimental Designs
This page is directed at college students, and will provide a good review for teachers. Click on “Exercise” for a short practice quiz with feedback. Use the questions as models to develop similar questions for your own students, using subject matter important to them such as music, food, cosmetics, pets, or sports.

Practice!
This two page pdf provides tips on identifying variables, treatment groups, and control groups. Three scenarios and questions are presented for practice, followed by an answer key and suggestions for writing your own scenarios.

Ajo Arizona Weather
See real time temperature plotted against time. What are the variables? Are they independent or dependent? How do you know? Is there another way to display the behavior of variables? How?

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