Designing Fair Tests with Variables

Crash Course Kids

In this engaging episode of Crash Course Kids, host Sabrina Cruz dives deeper into the engineering design process by exploring how to test multiple solutions to a single problem. Picking up from a previous experiment involving a carnival ring toss game, the video demonstrates that engineers often need to find alternative methods to achieve a goal when resources or conditions change. The narrative guides viewers through setting up fair tests by identifying criteria and variables, illustrating how changing one variable at a time is crucial for scientific validity. The core themes of the video are the scientific method, fair testing, and data organization. It explicitly defines and demonstrates the relationship between independent variables (the thing you change), controlled variables (the things you keep the same), and the desired outcome. The video also emphasizes the importance of using data tables to track results across different trials, teaching students that organization is a key part of the engineering process. This video is an excellent resource for upper elementary science classrooms introducing the concepts of variables and experimental design. By using the relatable and visual example of a ring toss game, it makes abstract concepts like "isolating variables" concrete and understandable. Teachers can use this to introduce a hands-on experiment, model how to create data tables, or reinforce the rule of only changing one variable at a time during investigations.