Firearms
1. When making inferences it’s good to make multiple experiments and observations because you might not always get every observation exact on the first observation. Like when measuring the diameter of the bullet, sometimes we had to measure again just to make sure we were correct.
2. It was hard to be precise when measuring, and when we were not confident our measurements were correct we did multiple observations.
3. When we had to identify our bullet we could rely on known data because we knew that if it was, say, a 9mm that all 9mm have to same measurements. We never really had to make up our own data, we just had to do measurements and compare data.
Fibers
1. We had to make multiple observations in the microscope when looking at the fibers, so we could get a better idea of how to draw them. Also when burning the fibers we would have to burn once or twice so we could see everything it did in the flame. Doing multiple observations helped give a sense of each fiber’s characteristics.
2. It was hard to be precise when observing the fibers under the microscope and drawing them. When it came to deciding the criminal it was hard to match up the unknown fiber to the other known fibers. We had to keep in mind that we probably weren’t correct.
3. We never had known data we could rely on and had to make our own data. We had to record what happened to the fibers but we couldn’t compare to other known data.
Soil
1. We did multiple observations when looking at the ph and water conductivity so our answers were more exact.
2. It was hard to be precise when measuring the exact amount of soil that we needed. Most of the time we were a bit off, we didn’t think it changed our results that much so we weren’t worried about it.
3. We didn’t have known data about each soil so we had to generate data about the soil. We got data like the ph levels, water conductivity, and the water absorbency of the soil. The difference from known data and data you have to generate is that known data is data that has already been generated by someone else, and when there is no data you can compare to then you have to generate your own.
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Good job accounting both for multiple measurements/observations for a single piece of evidence with the bullets and fibers, as well as for multiple ways of looking at evidence with soil. You might also consider that comparing evidence from multiple suspects or samples itself provides another form of making multiple observations and allows for doing the comparison with evidence from a crime scene. You also make solid distinctions about the source of possible error in your observations and good assessments of how sound your conclusions can be as a result. Lastly, you make an accurate distinction about the role of known data in comparing evidence versus having to generate your own data.
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