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Lab Independent Research Project

The final lab project will be an independent project that you will devise in collaboration with your lab partner(s). This project should be both novel (never done before) and hypothesis-driven (testing a specific prediction). Remember that scientific investigation can be looked at as a cycle.

Prediction

A series of observations are brought together into a model. This is the point that you will be entering the cycle. Therefore, you must start with an understanding of previous work in the field based on reading your text and primary research articles. That model is then used to devise a series of predictions that test the validity of the model. Your hypothesis should clearly indicate the prediction that you are testing. Obviously, for the predictions to be useful, it must be possible to design an experiment to test them. You should devise an experiment or series of experiments that are feasible given the constraints of the course. You and your partner(s) should then conduct those experiments and analyze the results to determine if your hypothesis is supported. There are 5 parts to this assignment:

- written proposal - oral proposal (group) - abstract - final oral presentation (group) - web page (group)

70 pts 50 pts 20 pts 70 pts 100 pts