Unit 2.1 - Secondary Data

Unit 1.2 - Secondary Data

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• Caption: Presentation by Salma Samatar

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• Caption: Hi!!

Data that's ready to go

• - You cannot always do your own experiments and find your own data. There are a number of reasons why.
• Reason 1: Many experiments need training that is way beyond secondary school level.
• Reason 2: Many experiments require equipment that are not available in schools either because they are too expensive too large or they are no supposed to be handled by students.
• Reason 3: Some experiments take very long. For example, a forest takes years to grow, and you would need that long to study it.
• Reason 4: Some experiments can only be done if at certain places that you are unlikely to ever go, especially just for a science experiments. These place may include; outer space, Antarctica, or at the bottom of the ocean.
• If you cannot run your own experiment, secondary data can be used.
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• Caption: Your school is not likely to have a radio telescope because of its size. It is also very hard to maintain an take are of.

What is secondary data?

• Secondary data is any data that you have found online, in a magazine or book, on a CD, DVD or video, in a textbook or a journal. Secondary data is any data that have been found by other scientists through their own experiments.
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• Caption: Secondary data can be found

Improving secondary data

• Secondary data can be easily found but is not always accurate. You can find out whether or not your information is reliable or not by checking a few simple things.

How old is data?

• Some data never changes. For example ice melts at 0 degrees Celsius and water boils at 100 degrees Celsius. This data will never change. So it doesn't matter where you get this data from or how old the information is. However, there is other data that was correct ten years ago, but is now out of date, and the data has changed. For example, the population of Sydney twenty years ago has definitely changed now in 2017. You can check how old data is on the imprint page which is at the first few pages of a book and the details on the bottom of the page.
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Where did the data come from?

• There are certain data sources that can be trusted. Such as; Encyclopedias, scientific journals and science textbooks are usually trustable but you still need to check how old the data is. Some scientific magazines are also quite reliable. These include; New Scientist, COSMOS, Scientific American, and National Geographic. Magazines that cannot be relied on for scientific data include gossip, celebrity, cooking and fashion magazines.

What is URL?

• The internet is most likely to be your first choice to look for data. However, some data will not always be accurate. URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator and is also called domain. The URL tells you who created the website and it gives you some idea whether you can trust it or not.
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• Caption: Country domains

Educational institutions

• URLs ending in .edu show that the website is hosted by an educational institution such as a school, college or university. Most of the material you find there can be trusted. However, students sometimes use their school server to create their own page, so you must be very careful!

Government

• Governments have many websites about health, finance, immigration arts and even science. If the URL of a website ends in .gov, then the site belongs to the USA government. IF it ends in .gov.au, the website belongs to the Australian government. Data on government pages is mostly up-to-date and accurate.

Commercial businesses

• Commercial business URLs end in .com. Commercial businesses are interested in making you buy their products. The products that they advertise will be accurate but because they really want you to purchase it they ill make them look good. Commercial business sites are not likely to include scientific information.

Networks

• When a website is not representing a continent or country, is not from an educational institution, not a government or business commercial page it will end in .net. Many of them are personal sites. If so, the URL usually includes a tide ( ~ ) symbol. Many of these websites are from the owner's opinion and may contain incorrect information.

Organisations

• One major organisation site is Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a non-profit organisation that allows anyone to enter any information. Since anybody in the world can add information, it may not be correct. Many organisation sites can be trusted, such as; Australian Red Cross and zoos such as Adelaide Zoo can be trusted. These organisations focus on fighting for diseases such as cancer and providing aid for people in poverty. Organisation websites end in .org.
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• Caption: Australian Aid is an organisation that helps Australians in need.

The need to compare

• One way to ensure that your secondary data is correct is to compare it with other books or websites that talk about the same thing.

Resource lists

• Ethics is the study of what is right and wrong. Ethics influences how we behave, and treat others. It includes honesty and respect to all. Scientists should be ethical in whatever they do. It is unethical or a scientist to say that somebody else's work belongs to you.
• Every scientist should include a recourse list when using data that is not their's.
• A resource list includes :
• Author(s): The author's full name (surname first). If no author then find the editor and right 'ed' after their name.
• Title: If using a magazine or newspaper you should also include the title of the article and page number. Give the URL for websites.
• Year or date of publication: Give the year or date of the most recent update.
• Publisher: The name of the organisation or institution that published it.
• Place: The country and city if available.

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