Guide to Scientific Questions

If you are a curious person you should always have questions about things. Some questions are good scientific questions and some are not good scientific questions.

So the question is, "What is a good scientific question?"

1. A good scientific question is one that can have an answer.

"Why is there air?" is not as good a question as "What is the air made of?"

2. A good scientific question can be tested by some experiment or measurement that you can do.

"Where did the Universe come from?" is not as good a scientific question as "How fast does a football fly through the air when I throw it?"

3. A good scientific question builds on what you already know.

"What chemicals are needed to make radishes grow?" is not as good a question as "What is the source of genetic mutations in drosophila melanogaster?"

4. A good scientific question, when answered, leads to other good questions.

"What is the color of the sky?" does not lead to as many other questions as "What events or conditions cause the sky to be blue (or orange or brown)?"

Scientists admire good questions so much that they give them a special name - a research hypothesis. Research hypotheses are sometimes stated as a question or sometimes as a statement.

So the bottom line is this: When you think up research hypotheses, think about what kind of answers you could expect and what experiments or measurements you would do to get those answers. Do you have the needed time, materials and data to get to the answers?