Each student will keep a journal for all parts of the activity. This journal may be any type of notebook where papers are already attached or into which you may attach loose papers. You should record in your journal any ideas that pop into your head that are somehow relevant to your project. For example, if you see the ants doing something interesting while you are trying to answer the questions I gave you, then write down what you are seeing in this second section. A big part of your journal grade will depend on whether or not you have kept a record of your ideas. When you are doing library research and you find a passage in a book that is important to your question, you should write down bibliographical information of the book, as well as a brief summary of the interesting ideas.

Even though you will be working in a group on a common question, each group member must keep records in his/her own journal. No two people in the class should have exactly the same information written in their journals, even though they are working on the same project. Two examples of where journals may be similar would be for ideas your group worked through when putting together your research question and hypothesis. Differences between journals should be evident for recorded data, interesting side observations that you may make, library research entries, and your ideas as to the meaning of your data.

Your journals will be graded according to neatness, completeness and whether or not your journal entries show that you are understanding the science you are doing. The steps of the scientific method that should be listed in your journal as you work through all of the experiments are:

• Problem Statement
• Library Research
• Hypothesis
• Materials
• Experimental Plan
• Data and Observations
• Data Analysis
• Conclusion

Your journal will be collected and graded after each experiment.