AIM: What is Observing?

Vocabulary: Objective

Bias

Quantitative

Qualitative

What is Observing? What is the most exciting thing about going to a party?

Who is there? …

Who was invited?…What kind of food is there? …

Is there a DJ or a Band?…Where am I sitting?

WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

MAKING OBSERVATIONS!

What is Observing?

How does one make observations

Five Senses

sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell

What’s the Difference: Flowers

• Green

• Red

• Attracts bees

• “for girls”

• Ugly

• Pretty

• happiness

What’s the Difference: Bush?

• 56 years old

• From Texas

• President

• Bad president

• Good president

• “war monger”

OBJECTIVE BIASED

What is Observing?

What does being OBJECTIVE mean?

“ having a prior point of view” (which may be wrong)

“based upon facts rather then opinions!” “free of bias”

What does BIAS mean?

What’s the Difference: Classroom

• 16 students were on time and 3 were late for class

• One-quarter of the class was later

Accurate Inaccurate

What’s the Difference: Flowers

• Roses at the store come in red, white, yellow

• Roses come in all types of colors

Accurate Inaccurate

Are these accurate and objective

• The friendliest people arrive to class first.

• Half the class was late

• Sixteen students were on time, 3 were late for class

What’s the Difference: Flowers

• Are green in color

• Have a good smell

• Have smooth leaves

• There are 3 flowers

• These flowers live for 4 months

• The Crocus blooms first

What’s the Difference: Bush

• Looks old

• Talks with an accent

• Warm person

• Served 2 ½ years

• 56 years old

• 2 Daughters

Qualitative Quantitative

What is Observing?

Qualitative versus Quantitative:

What is the difference?

Qualitative Observations include properties, colors, smells, textures

Quantitative Observations refer to numbers or measurements

Use your senses

Are your observations accurate?

Are your observations free of bias?

TIPS FOR MAKING GREAT OBSERVATIONS

Quantitative Observations must have proper units!

Make sure observations are not explanations or opinions

TIPS FOR MAKING GREAT OBSERVATIONS

What is Observing?

Class Handout Activity

What is Observing?

Homework:

INTERNET QUESTIONS

WRITE A PARAGRAPH SUMMARIZING

THE AIM USING THE VOCABULARY

Hyperlink1

Grandfather supervises the October rice harvest, drawing slowly on a water pipe, while a teenager prepares tea for their weary kin near Srinagar. Family farms and orchards support some 80 percent of Kashmir’s population.”

Hyperlink2

Fox River, Michigan

1996 Jay Dickman

“Fall sets maple and birch aflame along the Fox River’s east branch.”

—From “Hemingway’s Many Hearted Fox River,” June 1997, National Geographic magazine

Hyperlink3

“For a [female] cheetah the real danger is not losing a kill but losing her cubs. Ninety-five percent of cheetah cubs die before reaching independence. Hyenas kill them out of hunger, lions apparently out of bad habit. ...

“Female cheetahs deal with the threat by constantly moving, preferably before their rivals even know they’re around. They coexist as phantom species, slipping into temporary vacancies between prides of lions and packs of hyenas.”

Hyperlink4

"Losing the peace as well as the war, veterans who fought with the South African Army against Namibian independence languish in 'a place of stones and thorns,' a tent city in Schmidtsdrift. At the camp clinic a girl bundles a child sick with TB against the cold. Originally from Angola and Namibia, the veterans hope for homes on a nearby farm."

—

Zebra

Zebras drink and graze near a river in Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park. Millions of animals spend the rainy season in this grassland reserve. When the rivers dry at the end of the rainy season, the animals migrate to Kenya’s Masai Mara Game Park, where more abundant water conditions enable them to survive the dry season. Established in 1941, the Serengeti is one of Africa’s largest nature reserves.

Lions