Lab Report Will I be okay if I've never practised Biology IA?

[meowchelle]

Hi guys,

So I have an inexperienced Biology teacher who has never really taught us how to write a good Biology IA before. He's cool and all that, but he's quite a disorganised teacher who doesn't like lab reports (we've done some but he doesn't really mark any of them). I guess I'm okay with lab reports, I can write decent ones, but for Biology IA since I'm gonna be assessed on them, I'd have to do way better right?

So a couple days ago we were given our first Biology IA task and asked to write up a lab report, which will be marked and put as our first IA report. I'm really worried. I've never practised on following the IB criterias before. If this is my first time doing it, will I be okay if I follow the advice suggested by this forum or around the web or in study guides?

There isn't any time to practise and he's not going to mark any other reports, so I'm stuck. I guess I need advice on how to go forth from here. I really need my IA to shine. Thanks!

[Sofia.]

I haven't done a biology IA myself, but my school has written a sort of "IA Tick Sheet" that I could send you if you'd like. It works for all three of the subject and I've found it to be very useful. So send me a message if you want me to send it to you!

[whatislife]

There is criteria for this! please,, DON'T take me word for word, IAs take a while to write-up and you will learn as you write more.

There are sample IAs and sample criteria on the Internet.

 

For DCP: (data collection and processing)

it's soooo long, but basically, if you already have an aim, hypothesis, method, apparatus, etc. go ahead will preparing a table, use Microsoft excel. Make sure you include the uncertainties of the measuring instruments, and that the decimal places are all the same for each column. Put in your observations, an example of any calculations you did.

for processing, do a statistical test if you have many trials, average your results, make sure you include a graph, comments on your graph, etc, calculate uncertainties and percentage error.

 

CE (conclusion and evaluation)

discuss and comment on your findings, how is it different from lit. findings or expected findings, what are the errors: uncertainties, and  suggest improvements!!