Every Science Fact Ever

Ideas

Science is how we test ideas about the natural world.

Bench 1

A fair test

Change one thing. Keep the rest the same.

If you change the water and the light at the same time, you will not know which change mattered.

Bench 2

Measuring

Use the same tool the same way each time.

Write the unit. Centimeters, minutes, or degrees. A number with no unit is hard to trust.

Measure more than once. If the numbers jump around, check your steps.

Bench 3

What would change the result?

A different amount, even a little one.
A warmer room, or a darker one.
Starting the timer late.
Comparing two things that were not the same at the start.

Three big ideas

A theory

Gravity

Dropped things fall toward Earth. We can measure that pull.

The deep story of how gravity works is a theory. It has passed many tests. Scientists still test it.

The gravity card

A theory

Germs

Germ theory says tiny living things can make us ill. Tests back it up.

Washing hands with soap helps. Some germs help us too, like the ones in yogurt.

A theory

Evolution

Living things change over a very long time.

Fossils are one way we know. Family trees of living things are another.

This is a theory, not a wild guess. A theory is a big idea that has passed many tests.

The evolution card

Photo credits

Pictures were resized to fit. Nothing else was changed.

Charles Darwin. Julia Margaret Cameron. Public domain.
Jane Goodall. U.S. Department of State. Public domain.
George Washington Carver. Public domain. Restored by Adam Cuerden.
Barbara McClintock in her laboratory. Smithsonian Institution. Public domain.
Ernest Everett Just. Public domain.
Wangari Maathai. Kingkongphoto. CC BY-SA 2.0.
Marie Curie. Henri Manuel. Public domain.
Rosalind Franklin at a microscope. MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. CC BY-SA 4.0.
Percy Julian. Public domain.
Tu Youyou. Bengt Nyman. CC BY-SA 4.0.
Dmitri Mendeleev. Public domain.
Alice Ball. Public domain.
Isaac Newton. Godfrey Kneller. Public domain.
Michael Faraday. Public domain.
Chien-Shiung Wu. Smithsonian Institution. Public domain.
Ada Lovelace. Alfred Edward Chalon. Public domain.
Shirley Ann Jackson. World Economic Forum / Qilai Shen. CC BY-SA 2.0.
A later drawing of Hasan Ibn al-Haytham. Public domain.
Mary Anning. Painting credited to Mr. Grey. Public domain.
Katherine Johnson. NASA. Public domain. Restored by Adam Cuerden.
Mae Jemison. NASA. Public domain.
Nicolaus Copernicus. Public domain.
Galileo Galilei. Justus Sustermans. Public domain.
A wood frog. The Cosmonaut. CC BY-SA 2.5.
A honey bee on a flower. Tanner Smida. CC BY 4.0.
A button mushroom. chris_73. CC BY-SA 3.0.
A chimpanzee in a forest. Giles Laurent. CC BY-SA 4.0.
Rainforest canopy in the Amazon. CIAT. CC BY-SA 2.0.
Sweet wormwood, the plant artemisinin comes from. Kristian Peters. CC BY-SA 3.0.
A university science building. Mike Peel. CC BY-SA 4.0.
A magnet pulling a piece of magnetite. GOKLuLe. CC BY-SA 3.0.
Earth, photographed from Apollo 17. NASA. Public domain.
Jupiter's clouds, from NASA's Juno spacecraft. NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS. Public domain.
The Hubble Space Telescope above Earth. NASA. Public domain.
Telescope domes on Mauna Kea. T. Wynne / NASA JPL. Public domain.
Hands being washed with soap. Lars Klintwall Malmqvist. Public domain.
A common octopus. Albert Kok. CC BY-SA 3.0.
Stonehenge, an old stone circle used to track the sky. garethwiscombe. CC BY 2.0.
A microscope on a bright table. Ann 2000. CC BY-SA 4.0.
A lab dish with spots of germs. SS. Antonio e Biagio e Cesare Arrigo. CC BY-SA 4.0.
The Wright Flyer on its first flight in 1903. John T. Daniels. Public domain.
Part of Babbage's Difference Engine. geni. CC BY-SA 4.0.
Lyme Regis, England, beside the sea cliffs. Eugene Birchall. CC BY-SA 2.0.
St Mary's Hospital in London. Enric. CC BY-SA 2.0.