Final answer:
Six-year-old children are becoming capable of understanding the need for evidence in supporting hypotheses. In science, hypotheses must be testable and falsifiable, often involving controlled experiments to observe the effects of one variable on another.
Step-by-step explanation:
At the age of six, children begin to grasp the fundamental concepts of scientific inquiry, including the need for evidence to support hypotheses. A hypothesis in science must be testable and falsifiable, meaning it can be disproven by experimental results. Scientific understandings evolve as new information becomes available, reflecting science's openness to disproving ideas. This is a cornerstone of scientific practice that separates it from non-sciences, like the untestable and unfalsifiable nature of the supernatural.
To test a hypothesis, experiments are performed where one or more variables are manipulated. These variables could involve different aspects of an experiment that are measured or changed. Typically, an experimental variable, or independent variable, is altered to see its effect on a dependent variable. For example, in studying the effect of temperature on rabbit coat color, temperature would be the independent variable and coat color the dependent variable.
Control variables remain constant, ensuring that any changes in the dependent variable are due to the manipulation of the independent variable. This rigorous approach allows for constructing explanations of phenomena based on scientific practices, as indicated by the learning objective 6.2 within a science education.