Planet Earth Lab

In this course, you are learning to utilize some aspects of the scientific method.  Specifically, you are making observations and/or collecting and analyzing data so that you can draw conclusions about the natural world.  We typically work within the classroom using models, because Earth systems are often too large or too complex to test directly. 

People often think of models as simplified representations of “real” things—for example, a globe is a model of the Earth.  However, in science the idea of a model goes further that just making a simple representation.  The model is often an experimental tool, and the results of testing a model allow us to make hypotheses, or predictions, about what will happen in the “real world.”  The better the model is, the better the data fits with observations of the natural world.