The topic of this research paper is Acid Rain
Part 2. Answering the research question: Referencing your 4 credible sources (optionally,
you can include additional credible sources) and the collected data, write a short lab report that
addresses the research question. Please use the following section headers, and include the
following information:
1. Introduction. In this section, you will accurately and completely define the problem or
question being addressed. This includes giving the context and why the problem or
question is important. Typically, this section will be between one and three paragraphs
long.
2. Hypothesis and Predictions. In this section, you will provide and explain your
hypothesis/hypotheses and prediction(s). You should include at minimum one hypothesis
and one prediction. Remember that a good hypothesis not only includes what you think
will happen, but also why you think that will happen, based on prior knowledge or
previous research. A good prediction will describe what kind of results (i.e. data) you
would expect to get if your hypothesis is supported. Typically, this section only needs to
be one paragraph long.
3. Methods. In this section, you will describe the methods used to collect data, including
what data you collected. Unlike what you may have done for high school lab reports, this
section should not be written as a list of equipment and step-by-step instructions, but as
one to two paragraphs of complete sentences. You don’t need to include very obvious
details (e.g., that you used a ruler to measure length) or things that are common to all
experiments (e.g., that you gathered your equipment). Do include details specific to your
experiment (e.g., that you used 3.0 ml of water, or that you let the experiment run for 15
minutes).
4. Results and Discussion. In this section, you will provide the results of your lab report
and explain what those results mean. You must present your results, including at least
one graph, discuss whether your results support your hypothesis or not, and put your
results into the broader context (i.e., why the results are important). At the end, you will
likely have an overall conclusion where you state the most important take-home
message(s) of the experiment. This section will likely be 2-4 paragraphs.
5. Literature Cited. In this section, you will provide the properly formatted (using CSE
Name-Year format), alphabetical list of citations you reference in the rest of the lab
report. You must include at least 4 credible sources in your literature cited, and each one
must be referenced at least once in the lab report.
