Repeatable and reproducible science teaching resources

Reproducible in science

Making your results repeatable and reproducible

Practical activity for students to understand repeatability and reproducibility. Students often struggle to understand the terms ‘reproducible’ and ‘repeatable’. A measurement is reproducible if the investigation is repeated by another person, or by using different equipment or techniques, and the same results are obtained. A measurement is repeatable if the original experimenter repeats the investigation using same method and equipment and obtains the same results. This activity asks students to measure the temperature change when pieces of magnesium are added to acid. It challenges the class to see which scientist gets the most repeatable results. Students plot a simple graph of their repeated measurements to help them visualise exactly what is meant by repeatable data. (PDF)

  1. Accuracy and precision
  2. Writing a scientific method
  3. Variables in science
  4. Reproducible and repeatable measurements