Notebook Rubric
General Grading Scale
4.0 (96-100%) - Perfect, I cannot think of anything else they could have done
\ \ \ \ \ All categories and aspects are present and no further improvement is necessary
3.75 (93-95%) - A very good notebook, they just have a couple of things they could improve on
\ \ \ \ \ All categories and most aspects are present but there are several aspects that have room for improvement
3.5 (87-92%) - A good notebook, could use some more work
\ \ \ \ \ All categories are present but there are some missing aspects or significant improvements to be made
3.0 (78-84%) - An alright notebook, they have some good stuff but it needs a lot of improvement
\ \ \ \ \ Most categories are present but are missing some aspects. Some aspects are good but others need a lot of improvement
2.5 (68-74%) - Not great, they left out very important pieces of information completely and what they have needs a lot of work
\ \ \ \ \ Many categories or aspects are left out and what is there needs major improvement
2.0 (65%) - Very weak notebook, they turned something in but that's about it
\ \ \ \ \ Most categories are nonexistent and what is present is done poorly
0.0 (0%) - Did not turn in a notebook
Experimental Design
- Communication: Clearly record the steps and results of the experiment.
- Scientific Process: Proceed intentionally through the experiment.
- Communication
- Diagrams are labeled and clear
- Procedure is clear and detailed enough to reproduce the experiment
- Observations are noted and related back to the concepts
- Predictions are listed and explained
- Reasoning/motivation shows why the experiment was carried out in this manner
- Scientific process
- List goals for each section of the lab
- Did they plan ahead?
- Did they work systematically? And intentionally?
- Multiple trials
- Attempts to improve accuracy
Discussion
- Uncertainty: Discuss uncertainty in measurements, models, and results.
- Results: Present results in a clear way and support claims with evidence.
- Uncertainty
- Measurements
- Recorded with uncertainty
- Discuss sources of uncertainty
- Uncertainty is quantified and explained
- Worked to reduce uncertainty
- Models
- Compared models to observations
- Discussion of limitations/assumptions of model
- Corrections to model based on experimental results
- Results
- Plot (if one exists)
- They graph their data in a way that makes sense
- The plot tells us something significant about the experiment
- Not just, x and y are linearly related
- There is a best fit line and a slope
- There are error bars on the data points
- Error bars that make sense
- They graphed their data in an interesting way that tells us something about the experimental parameters
- Conclusions
- They discuss the motivation of the experiment
- They summarize the process
- They discuss the result
- Slope or other significant result is given with uncertainty and compared to some expectation
- The significance of the result is discussed
- It is tied it to the bigger picture (implications)