What is the independent variable?

An independent variable is a variable that you change in an experiment to see how it affects another variable. It's called "independent" because it doesn't depend on any other variables in the experiment.

For example, let's say you want to know how much water a plant needs to grow. You could set up an experiment where you give different plants different amounts of water and see how tall they grow. The amount of water you give the plants is the independent variable. The height of the plants is the dependent variable.

It's important to have an independent variable in an experiment because it allows you to control the experiment. If you didn't have an independent variable, you wouldn't be able to tell which variable was causing the change in the dependent variable.

Here are some other examples of independent variables:

• The type of fertilizer you use on a plant
• The amount of light a plant gets
• The temperature at which you bake a cake
• The amount of time you study for a test

Independent variables are an important part of experiments. They allow scientists to control the experiments and figure out which variables are causing the changes in the dependent variables.

What are variables?

Variables are different things that you can change or measure in an experiment. They are like the parts of a science experiment that you can control or observe. For example, if you are doing an experiment with plants, some variables could be the amount of water the plants get or the type of soil you use.

What is the dependent variable?

The dependent variable is the thing in an experiment that you are trying to measure or observe. It depends on what you change in the experiment. In our plant experiment, the dependent variable would be the height of the plants. We would change the amount of water they get and then see how tall they grow.