Lab-notebook defense
In this assessment you open your own lab notebook and explain it out loud: what you recorded, why you recorded it that way, what the data show, and where the experiment could have gone wrong. The guide questions your entries directly. A notebook you did not truly keep cannot be defended — the reasoning has to be yours.
| Criterion | Not yet | Approaching | Mastered |
|---|---|---|---|
| Completeness of entries | Entries missing or fragmentary. | Most entries present but with gaps. | Dated, complete entries for every session. |
| Data recording & sketches | Data sloppy or sketches absent. | Records data but with unclear units or labels. | Clear, labeled data and accurate sketches. |
| Analysis & conclusions | No analysis beyond raw numbers. | Draws a conclusion not fully tied to data. | Conclusions follow logically from the recorded data. |
| Identifying sources of error | Names no sources of error. | Lists generic errors without relevance. | Identifies specific, plausible errors and their effects. |
| Defending the reasoning verbally | Cannot explain own entries. | Explains some entries, falters on others. | Defends the data and reasoning clearly out loud. |
“Here’s the entry from the enzyme lab — I logged the temperature at each trial and sketched the bubbling rate, and that’s why I can say the reaction slowed when it got too hot. Someone else could rerun this from my pages alone.”
“I wrote the conclusion down. The data is mostly in my head. I didn’t record the steps because I remembered them at the time.”
This is an oral defense of your own recorded work — not a report to submit. A criterion is mastered when you can point to your entries, explain the reasoning behind them, and stand up to follow-up questions about your data.