Final answer:
After observing the hot pavement, Meg should develop a hypothesis as her next step in the scientific method. She would then design an experiment or gather more data to test her hypothesis, analyze the results, and potentially refine her hypothesis and experiment further.
Step-by-step explanation:
If Meg observes that the pavement is unbearably hot after swimming on a hot afternoon, the next step she should take to apply the scientific method to discover the reasons for the hot pavement is to develop a hypothesis.
A hypothesis is an educated guess based on observations that propose a tentative answer to the problem. For example, Meg might hypothesize that the pavement is hot because the asphalt absorbs a lot of sunlight, which heats it up over the course of the day. To test this hypothesis, she may gather data such as the temperature of the pavement throughout the day compared to other materials, or the time spent in direct sunlight.
After forming a hypothesis, she would proceed to design an experiment or collect more data to test her hypothesis, analyze the results, and draw conclusions. Depending on her findings, Meg may need to revise her hypothesis and conduct further tests.