![]() ![]() Wind and Weight Observation ActivityĬut long, rectangular strips of construction paper out and tape them to a surface- letting them hang down. Just add food coloring to the water and observe the flowers every few hours journaling the changes that occur over time. You will need cups, food coloring, and white carnations for this creatively colorful optical activity. Then, ask the children to recall which object was removed. You can use any household objects simply set them all out and have children observe them and take one away. This difficult brain activity will require children to remember which objects were present and which ones were taken away. They’re great for all ages and skill levels and will certainly leave your littles asking questions and gaining a keen eye for detail. These observation activities range from scientific observations completed at home to observations made in natural environments. These 20 activities can aid children in developing scientific inquiry, paying attention to detail, developing problem-solving skills, and cultivating their creativity. Observations are essential to the process of science, but they are only part of the picture.Observation is one of the most powerful tools that children can learn from a very young age. ![]() Scientific knowledge is built as people come up with hypotheses and theories, repeatedly test them against observations of the natural world, and continue to refine those explanations based on new ideas and observations. A falling ball (no matter how detailed our observations of it may be) does not directly tell us how gravity works, and collecting observations of all the different finch species of the Galapagos Islands does not directly tell us how their beaks evolved. However, theories and hypotheses (the fundamental structures of scientific knowledge) cannot be directly read off of nature. Observations inspire, lend support to, and help refute scientific hypotheses and theories. Do they support one idea over others, help refute an idea, or suggest an entirely new explanation? Though data may seem complex and be represented by detailed graphs or complex statistical analyses, it’s important to remember that, at the most basic level, they are simply observations. Scientists analyze and interpret data in order to figure out how those data inform their hypotheses and theories. Whether the observation is an experimental result, radiation measurements taken from an orbiting satellite, an infrared recording of a volcanic eruption, or just noticing that a certain bird species always thumps the ground with its foot while foraging - they’re all data. Observations yield what scientists call data. Photo credits: Flickr user Hubble ESA, Wikimedia, and Wikimedia. Tools like the Hubble Space Telescope, microscopes, and submersibles help us to observe the natural world. Through these tools, we can make many more observations much more precisely than those our basic senses are equipped to handle. In such cases, we must rely on indirect observations facilitated by tools. And these tools do a better job of observing than we can! Further, humans cannot directly sense many of the phenomena that science investigates: No amount of staring at this computer screen will ever let you see the atoms that make it up or the UV radiation that it emits. Of course, we can make observations directly by seeing, feeling, hearing, and smelling, but we can also extend and refine our basic senses with tools: thermometers, microscopes, telescopes, radar, radiation sensors, X-ray crystallography, fMRI machines, mass spectroscopy, etc. We typically think of observations as having been seen “with our own eyes.” But in science, observations can take many forms.
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