There are a few things that you can do to reduce the cost of screwing up. The first thing to do is to quicksave often (defaults to F5, load the last quicksave by holding F9). This means that you can get your ship into Kerbal orbit (quicksave), do your transfer burn (quicksave), do your Munar injection burn (quicksave), and then your deorbit burn (quicksave) without worrying about having to redo the entire mission. If you want to practice landing, then just try to land, and then load the last quicksave, which should be just after your deorbit burn.
Note that there is only a single quicksave available per save, and if you load it, and it's too old, you're basically stuck with it, unless you catch it quickly enough.
The second option is to create tutorial/scenario saves. These use the same savefile format as the rest of the game, but also include end goals. I'm not familiar with steps required to create them, but I've tried some community generated ones in the past. Take a look through Kerbal Spaceport, the forums, and the KSP subreddit for any that you think will fit the bill.
Your final option is save editing. Skip the drudgery of launch and just place your lander directly into Munar orbit! Scott Manley has done a video all about editing your save to do fun and interesting stuff, or to save some time.
There may be some other options available to you as well, but with these three methods, you should be able to do plenty of practice while also completing missions.
In Kerbal Space Program, Science depends on the location and the type of experiment.
Altitude Corridor
In detail, for Kerbin, this makes five altitude corridors (with some caveats):
- On the Ground (0m)
- Lower Atmosphere (≤ 18km)
- Upper Atmosphere (≤ 69km)
- Near Space (≤ 250km)
- Outer Space (> 250km)
Biomes
On top of that, Kerbin knows various biomes:
- Grasslands
- Highlands
- Mountains
- Deserts
- Badlands
- Tundra
- Ice Caps
- Water
- Shores
Additionally, the Space Center also has various mini-biomes which return separate results, but only when on the ground (above ground, the whole space center counts as "Shores"):
- Administration
- Astronaut Complex
- Crawlerway
- Flag Pole
- LaunchPad
- Mission Control
- R&D
- Runway
- SPH
- Tracking Station
- VAB
Experiments
Depending on the experiment, some of these altitude corridors have per-biome results, others only have one result for the entire corridor.
In particular:
The Surface Sample is a biome-dependant surface-only experiment.
The EVA Report is biome-dependant on the surface, in the lower atmosphere and in near space; it is global everywhere else.
The Crew Report is biome-dependant on the surface and in the lower atmosphere; it is global everywhere else.
The Mystery Goo Observation (available through the Mystery Goo™ Containment Unit from the Basic Rocketry tech node) is biome-dependant on the surface; it is global everywhere else.
Storing Experiments
There can only be one crew report per part that produces a crew report (that is, per capsule), which is stored in the part. It can be transmitted, in which case it makes space for a new crew report.
Both the EVA report and the Surface Sample experiments can be stored in the capsule as well, with each combination of altitude corridor and biome once. So, you can store a surface sample from every biome, and EVA reports from every biome all at once.
Transmitting Results
Results can either be recovered by landing the craft on Kerbin and then recovering it from the Tracking Station (or from the craft view, where it's hidden at the top of the screen), or by transmitting them home.
Transmission is hardly effective this early into the tech tree - you lack the electricity to send the results back. Nevertheless, you can - for example - send back one crew report to make space for another, so here's some information about transmission as well:
Every experiment has a transmission efficiency, which reduces the Science yield on transmission (as opposed to recovery).
In the case of the Surface Sample this is 25%, which makes them an undesirable candidate for transmission.
Similarly, the Mystery Goo Observation has only 30% efficiency.
All reports (be that EVA or Crew), however, return a full 100%.
Best Answer
Science points are earn by doing experiments in diverse situation.
Experiments include:
A basic launch and land rocket will earn you some points. Better flights (orbital, Mun fly-by, etc) will get you additional rewards.
Operation are also useful:
As far as science is concerned, the basic rocketry science node give you access to the Mystery Goo Containment Unit. This is your main scientific related module for the moment. Later on, you will unlock in the bottom tree the Sc9001 Science Jr. module. Other parts with science experiments are all the old scienctific sensors and the Sensor Array Computing Nose Cone which replaces the avionics nose-cone from earlier versions.
Since you will only get points when you recover your ship, I advise you to get multiple science equipment for a single flight. Then you want to use the modules in diverse situation:
Keep in mind that EVAs and crew reports follow the same principle. EVA on Kerbin will count.
You can also communicate information through radio, but it will give smaller rewards (10-40%), but using a probe, it can be repeated multiple times unlike crewed vessel that need to return home.
Edit: and there I went to Minmus :
I think I'm missed the EVA report though.