There is agreement among experts that the best way to learn how to do anything is to try to do it. Thus, the best way to learn how to do science is to try to do it. Many scientists do science in a lab. The motivation for this course is to provide you the opportunity to learn science by your doing science in the lab. This contrasts with lecture courses where someone tells you what others have discovered, but where you do not have the opportunity to discover for yourself.
Science is a method for testing ideas to see if they work.
You will do all four of these. A prediction is easiest to test with an experiment if it is highly specific. This produces two consequences for the experiments we do in this course. First, the predictions involve using mathematics, which is a way to produce very specific expectations for what may happen in an experiment. Second, because specific predictions are important, I have selected particular experiments with which I am familiar that can be easily done in the lab.