Grade 6 · Science · Lesson 4

Collect Reliable Data and Reduce Error

A fair test design only matters if the data you collect is trustworthy. Reliable data is data that another scientist could collect again, with the same tools and the same method, and get a result very close to yours. To get there, you must plan how you will measure, watch out for the small mistakes that creep in, and repeat your trials so a single bad measurement does not fool you.

What this lesson teaches

1Identify habits that make collected data reliable
2Spot common sources of measurement error in an experiment
3Match each error type to the technique that reduces it
4Repeat trials and use averages to improve confidence in results

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