How to Write Formal Lab Reports

Listed below is the FORMAL LAB REPORT FORMAT required in 9th grade Earth Science.

Sample lab reports will be posted on this page for study by students and parents.

NAME: Earth Science Date:

Earth Science: Honors and Regular

Formal Lab Report Format

Formal lab reports will contain all of the following sections, in this order, unless otherwise specified by your teacher. You must word process your formal lab reports on your laptop.

 

Name

Lab Partner Names

Date

Class Period

Title and Number of Lab

Purpose

State the purpose of the lab in your own words in one or two sentences.

Materials

List all of the materials that you used in the lab.

Procedure

State in your own words(# steps) the process that you went through in conducting the lab.

Include a labeled diagram of the lab set-up. (If you choose, you may leave space and sketch this by hand.)

Data/Observations

Record observations of the lab experiment. Include quantitative data in this section, including any data tables or graphs. Make sure that graphs are labeled with a title and that the axes are also labeled.

Analysis Questions

In complete sentences, answer the analysis questions from the lab. You do not need to recopy the questions.

Summary

The summary is the section of the lab where you go further than simply restating what you did in the lab. Do not simply restate your results. Take it a step further, concentrating on the major ideas and making connections to other concepts that we have covered in class. Your summary should be at least one page long, double-spaced.