Formal Lab Reports

Biology Honors

1. Title

FYI ~ Labs in this class account for 35% of your final grade!!

You will be responsible for 1 formal lab write up per unit

I will let you know which lab you will need to write up

All lab reports should have a heading, title, and be organized

2. Purpose

What’s the point of this lab? What are we trying to find out? ALWAYS given in question form!!!!! Ex: Why do students in Mrs. Orwar’s class

fall asleep 15 minutes after class starts?

3. Hypothesis

Statement (NOT a question!) SpecificSpecific Based on background information Must include the independent and dependent

variables and a prediction! If…is related to…then…

– Ex: If students falling asleep in Mrs. Orwar’s class is related to how much sleep they got the night before, then the students who get 8 hours of sleep the night before will not fall asleep in class.

You may use a statement but it MUST be testable! – Ex: I believe that students in Mrs. Orwar’s class are falling

asleep because they did not get 8 hours of sleep the night before.

4. Equipment

List of what you will be using to perform the experiment

To receive full credit, you must include amounts of materials used (ex: 10 mL of water)

5. Procedures

List form Step-by-step - How are you going to perform

the experiment? Can be somewhat abbreviated Ex: Don’t have to say “Turn on faucet to fill

10 mL graduated cylinder with 5 mL of water.” You can say “Fill 10 mL graduated cylinder with 5 mL of water.”

6. Diagrams

Pictures/drawings of lab set up I will tell you when your report needs this

included

7. Variables

Independent variable– What you changed

Dependent variable– What you will measure

8. Control & Constants

Give your control– What are you including in your experiment as a

comparison to your experimental group(s)?

List constants– What will you do to keep the variables controlled?– Ex: no students have a snack before bed, no

student may hit snooze

9. Data & Observations

Vary depending on experiment Use tables to display quantitative data Always title, labels, and units of measure! Descriptions to provide qualitative data

10. Graphs & Analysis

MOST IMPORTANT! Graphs

– Graphs should ALWAYS have: a title, labels on each axis, and units on each axis

– Graphs will be in LINE format unless otherwise instructed

Analysis – Paragraph form– What does each piece of data

mean?– Discuss trends/the meaning of

the graphed data– May include questions

provided by teacher

11. Conclusion

Also VERY important! Restate your hypothesis State whether it is supported or not (refuted/contradicted) using

your data State correct info (explain what really happened if your

hypothesis was wrong) How does all of this relate back to the problem? Include areas of improvement if you were to do the lab again –

be specific! See me if you would like to see some sample conclusion

formats to help you with this