Unit 3. Science Routine

What comes tШ ЦТЧН аСОЧ вШu СОКr tСО аШrН “rou-

tine”?

What do scientists do to conduct their research?

Do you think that the work of scientists is well-organized?

Are you a self-disciplined person?

Can you describe an average working day of a scientist? Arrange the activities in groups according to the time. (pic. 5)

Pic. 5

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Useful words:

early, late, all day long, most of the time, (not) long, sometimes, often, always, never, in the morning (afternoon, evening)

Study daily routines of Charles Darwin. What do you think was his key to success?

7:45 – Breakfast. 8:00 – Work in study.

9:30 – Listen to family letters or novels in drawing room. 10:30 – Work in study.

12:15 – The end of his working day, walking.

13:00 – Lunch followed by reading newspapers/novels or writing letters. 15:00 – Rest in bedroom.

16:30 – Work in study, clearing up matters of the day. 17:30 – Rest in bedroom.

19:30 – Tea.

20:00 – Two games of backgammon with his wife Emma. 22:00 – Retire to bed.

(Adapted from: Freeman R.B. Charles Darwin. England, 1978)

A. Do you think that doing research has changed your life? What are the changes that research brings (positive and negative ones)? Discuss it with your partner and give him recommendations on how to cope with every-day problems caused by being a researcher.

Before research

N E G A T I V E

Now

CHANGES

E V I T I S O P

Y O U R L I F E

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B. Scan text A and pick out the recommendations on balancing life, which are the most appropriate for researchers.

Finding a balance between work, play, and other activities isn't easy. If you have a family, you will have to balance your priorities very carefully. Graduate school isn't worth risking your personal relationships over; be sure that you save time and energy to focus on the people who matter to you.

One of the keys to balancing your life is to develop a schedule that's more or less consistent. You may decide that you will only work during the days, and that evenings are for your hobbies. Or you might decide that afternoons are for socializing and exercising, and work late at night. I decided very early on in graduate school that weekends were for me, not for my thesis, and I think it helped me to stay sane.

Many graduate students hit the doldrums around the beginning of the third year, when they're finishing up their coursework and trying to focus in on a thesis topic. Sometimes this process can take quite a while. Try to find useful, enjoyable activities that can take your mind off the thesis. Sing in a choir, learn a foreign language, study the history of ancient Greece, garden, or knit. If you schedule regular activities (rehearsals, tennis lessons), you will probably find it easier to avoid drifting aimlessly from day to day.

In the final push to finish your thesis, though, you will almost certainly have less time for social activities than you used to. Your friends may start to make you feel guilty, whether they intend to or not. Warn them in advance that you expect to turn down lots of invitations, and it's nothing personal – but you need to focus on your thesis for a while. Then you'll be all done and free as a bird! (Until the next phase of your life starts...)

Here are three descriptions of how scientists work. Can you find what is similar and what is different in the ways they do research?

Example 1.

I was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows in the 1980s. One member of my cohort was Gary Belovsky, now a professor of biology at Notre Dame. He was interested in how animals search for food, and how nutrients were recycled in the ecosystem. To a layperson Gary traveled in Montana chasing moose and analyzing their droppings.

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Example 2.

Another Junior Fellow was Lawrence Krauss, a cosmologist interested in the birth and death of the universe. Lawrence, who later wrote The Physics of Star Trek, recently assumed leadership of the Origins program at Arizona State University. As he did his science, Lawrence mostly sat in his office working with equations.

Example 3.

I was a chemist. I was interested in how the phenomenon of life could be understood in terms of the interactions between its constituent molecules, and how this understanding might help diagnose and treat human disease. What I did all day was making molecules, doing something that looked much like what chefs do when they are cooking in a restaurant kitchen.

Listen to the speaker and practise pronunciation of the words related to research:

investigate		infer	v.
examine		inference
analyze		evidence
consider		state-of-the-art
aspect		conference
thesis		feedback
idea		classify
peculiarity		scale
effect		procedure
influence		replication
impact	n.	hypothesis
observation		hierarchy
observe		generalize
prediction		do experiments
variable		perform experiments
data		carry out experiments
share		conduct experiments

GivО sвnonвms to tСО RussiКn аorН “ ”, tСО most РОnОral word which can help to describe what scientists do. Then study the English words below and say, if they are used in different or similar ways.

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to study	,	(	,	-
to investigate		)
to examine	,	,
to analyze
to look at	,
to consider	,		,

Examples:

1.Over 1000 samples were involved in the study.

2.They СКvОn’t Мonsidered this aspect in their study.

3.We look at local variations due to impurity effects.

4.Scientists are examining the impact of global warming on local cli-

mates.

5.We also looked at tСО ОЯШХutТШЧ ШП ∆(W) for plasmas at constant plasmas current.

6.We examined other methods to increase the surface area of catalysts.

7.The research aims to investigate why schools are not doing better.

A. Study the following speech patterns which can help to clarify some details of research.

1. Do you consider this aspect in	У		-
your study?			?
2. Have you considered this aspect	У		-
in your thesis?			?
3. Do you look at local variations	И	,	-
due to impurity effects?
		?
4. Have you looked at local varia-	И	,	-
tions due to impurity effects?
		?
5. I wonder if you consider this as-	И	(х	)
pect in your thesis.
			?
I would be interested to know if you	М	,	-
consider this aspect in your study.
			?

B. Tell your group what you investigate. Use vocabulary of task 3.5. Let your groupmates clarify some details of your study.

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Useful phrases:

ОППОМts ШП … ШЧ …; ОППОМts ШП tОЦpОrКturО ШЧ …; ТЧПХuОЧМО ШП … ШЧ …; ТЦpКМt ШП … ШЧ …; ОМШХШРТМКХ КspОМts; psвМСШХШРТМКХ КspОМts ШП …; ОМo-

nomical factors; local peculiarities of …; МШЧНТtТШЧs ТЧ/ШП …

A. Guess what job is compared with the work of scientists.

In some ways, scientists are like …, piecing together clues to learn about how things work in the natural world. Scientists gather information in a certain way. They ask questions, make observations and predictions, test ideas, change variables, analyze data, and share results.

B. Work in pairs. Put the following expressions in the correct order and tell each other what scientists do.

change variables

make observations

ask questions

analyze data

gather information

test ideas

make predictions

share results

Useful phrases:

to begin with, first of all, then, next, after that, so, so then, finally, at the end

C. Explain in your own words what these expressions mean.

A. Read the passage about scientists and write out phrases synonymous with those in task 3.7 B.

In general, scientists are people who try to figure out how the many different things in our world and our universe work. This includes scien-

tists who study the biggest galaxies to those who study the tiniest atoms.

SМТОЧtТsts usО spОМТКХ ЦОtСШНs tШ ОбКЦТЧО аСКt tСОв’rО stuНвТЧg by proposing an explanation to a question or problem, collecting evidence and running tests, and then forming a conclusion based on the results.

A scientist might work in a laboratory, out in nature, at a special office, as a professor, as a writer or journalist, and more. To answer puzzling

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questions, scientists might do everything from performing tests and collecting surveys to brainstorming and daydreaming.

B. Tell your group about your investigation: what you have done, what you are doing at the moment, and what you are going to do next. You should use vocabulary of tasks 3.7 and 3.8.

Practise activities which help scientists to learn information about the world. First, study the definitions below.

Scientists learn about the world around them by:

•observing, i.e. using the five senses to gather information;

•inferring, i.e. making guesses about or interpreting the observations made with the use of five senses;

•predicting, i.e. making an inference about a future event based on current evidence.

Observing. Say, what you SEE and what you DO NOT SEE in the pictures (pic. 6, a, b, c).

a

b

c

Pic. 6

Inferring. Say, what do you THINK is shown in the pictures above (pic. 6, a, b, c). How did you guess it? Make other suggestions.

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Predicting. What do you think WILL HAPPEN: a) if we pour each liquid in a graduated cylinder (pic. 7); b) in one second/in one hour (pic. 6, b, c)?

Pic. 7

Identify each of the following statements as observation, inference or prediction.

•The three liquids that were in the beaker floated on top of each other.

•I think that the white liquid in the jar is soap.

•The milk floats on the Kool-Aid.

•The green liquid will most likely float on the white liquid.

•The colorless liquid in the beaker might be water.

•If milk is added to the beaker it will float on the syrup.

Practise observing, inferring and predicting based on: a) what you can hear, b) what you can smell, c) what you can sense with your eyes closed at the moment. Tell your group about it.

First, study schemes 1 3 and write out things that scientists do

while conducting their research. Then describe the work of sci-

Оntists Лв tОllinР аСКt вou’vО lОКrnt Пrom tСО sМСОmОs.

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Background/Observation

How has the work been done previously?

What similar work has been leading up to this point?

Study state-of-the-art (literature review, projects, informal discussions, etc.)

Publish findings

Write scientific papers			Make presentations

	Intermediate results								Consolidated results
									Journals
		Conferences
	Collect feedback

Understand and share what you learn

Classifying

Making/building models

Communicating

Size, shape

Picture

Writing

Diagram

Use

Speaking

Composition

Computer image

Reading

…

…

Listening

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Practise your classification skills (tasks A, B). First, read the definition below.

Classification – the process of putting things into particular groups according to the features that they have. When you classify, you show relations between a general class (of a thing or idea) and its members or types.

A. Create classification hierarchies on reading text B.

CONCEPT

Science begins by developing concepts to describe the empirical world. A concept is an abstraction representing an object, a property of an object, or a certain phenomenon. Concepts do not actually exist as empirical phenomena: a concept is rather a symbol of the phenomenon. As a symbol of a phenomenon the concept functions as a means of communication.

Concepts also introduce a perspective: a way of looking at empirical phenomena. Through scientific concepts the perceptual world is given an order and coherence that could not be perceived before conceptualization.

Another function of concepts is as a means of classification and generalization. Scientists categorize, structure, order, and generalize their experiences and observations in terms of concepts. Concepts serve as components of theories and thus of explanations, predictions, and understanding.

There are different types of concepts: concepts of class, relation, and variable. If phenomena that resemble each other in some respect are assembled in one group, we have created a concept of class. For instance all people with blue eyes fall under the concept of blue-eyed people.

Objects, individuals, or concepts of class may have a specific relation

to each other. For instance, Stockholm and Dar–es–Salaam are geographically related tШ ОКМС ШtСОr. StШМФСШХЦ Тs ЧШrtС ШП DКr. “NШrtС ШП” Тs К МШn-

cept of relation.

B. Here is an example of Internet hyperlink navigation systems. The web page presents information on soils. General blocks are omitted. You should generalize by filling in the gaps (a, b).

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	a)	…			b)	…
Soil as an engineering material					Volume: the soil model
Size range of grains					Simulation
	o	Identification			o	Degree of saturation
Shape of grains					o	Air-voids content
	o	SAND grains			Masses of solid and water
	o	CLAY grains			Densities and unit weights
	o	Specific surface			Laboratory measurements
Composition of grains					o	Water content
Structure or fabric					o	Unit weight
					Field measurements

Answer the questions about modeling and compare your an-

swers with text C. What conclusion can you make?

What is a model?

Why do scientists build models?

What is scaling and why do scientists use it?What is a scale?

Do you build models in your research? What do they represent?

Scientists build models and use scaling to represent objects that are far too large to show at their true size. Models are smaller objects that are built to represent the detail of larger objects. Scientists use smaller measurements that are in proportion or scaled to the measurements of the larger object the model represents. Scaling is also done to represent extremely large distances between objects, such as the planets in our solar system. Another example of scaling would be when architects build models of buildings. These models may have a scale where every inch of height stands for a certain amount of feet in height for the real buildings. When scientists build models, they are providing a visual image that helps others to understand scientific concepts (such as planetary motion) and objects (such as high speed trains).

A. Complete the statements of the following passage about scientific experiments. Use the words from the box.

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algorithm	make	replication	carry out	economics
conditions	identical	different	procedure	engineering

An experiment is an orderly К) …. SМТОЧtТsts Л) … ОбpОrТЦОЧts tШ test a hypothesis. Uses of experiments vary considerably between the natural and social sciences.

In М) … and other physical sciences, experiments are used to test theories and hypotheses about how physical processes work under particular d) … (e.g., whether a particular engineering process can produce a desired chemical compound). Typically, experiments in these fields will focus on О) … (repetition) of identical procedures in hopes of producing П) … results in each replication.

B.Complete the statements about your experiment.

1.Mв ОбpОrТЦОЧt Тs КЧ ШrНОrХв …

β. АО (sСКХХ) ruЧ ОбpОrТЦОЧt tШ tОst СШа/аСОtСОr … γ. АО (sСКХХ) ПШМus ШЧ …

Brainstorming: give examples of wrong predictions (see some examples below).

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A Fill in the missing words:

1. Facts are collected in various manners, for instance, through …, by observation.

β. … is done to represent large distances between objects.

3.If sМТОЧtТsts … at something, they examine it and decide what to do.

4.SМТОЧtТsts РuОss ШutМШЦОs Лв ЦКФТЧР …

5.TШ … ЦОКЧs to form an opinion about something that is based on information that you already have.

6.… technology uses the newest and most advanced ideas and features.

7.The Periodic Table … chemical elements according to atomic number.

B

Check your prediction skills: complete the ideas.

1.

	water			expand.
If	steel	is heated
			it will
	mercury	is cooled
				contract.
	alcohol

2.

1. IП К ЦОtКХ ЛКr Тs СОКtОН, Тts НТЦОЧsТШЧs … β. IП pСШspСШrus Тs ОбpШsОН tШ КТr, Тt …

γ. IП аО ПrООгО аКtОr, Тt …

4. IП К ЦКРЧОt Тs suspОЧНОН КЛШut Тts МОЧtrО, Тt …

6.If the price gets СТРСОr, tСО НОЦКЧН …

7.IП puЛХТМ trКЧspШrt Тs ОППТМТОЧt, pОШpХО … tСОТr МКrs.

8.IП tСО sКХКrв Тs ТЧМrОКsОН, …

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C Check your analytical skills.

Which of the following diagrams indicates the best relation between Women, Mothers and Engineers?

How do you assess your results?

Excellent

Good

I need more practice

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