(bright upbeat music) - Hello scientists.

Welcome to Room Nine, our region's largest classroom.

My name is Mrs Stobbs and I teach kindergarten in the Maplewood-Richmond Heights school district right here in St. Louis.

And today I'll be teaching a science lesson for kindergarteners and for preschoolers, but of course, learners of all ages are welcome to join me.

So are you ready?

Let's get started.

All right, my friends today, we're going to learn about something that you do all the time that scientists do too.

This is something you're doing right now.

You do it all the time, all day, every day.

Do you know what it is?

I have it written on my board right here.

Do you know this word?

Shout it out.

Oh, I heard some of you say it.

This word is observe.

Do you know what it means to observe something?

Or maybe you've made an observation before?

Have you ever done that?

To observe is to use your senses and to learn about the world around you.

So you might look at something and notice what you see.

You might listen to something and notice what you hear.

You might smell something and notice what it smells like.

You might touch something and notice how it feels.

You might even observe using your sense of taste.

You might taste something and notice how it tastes, if it tastes really good, or if it tastes really bad, yuck.

My friends, so do you do that every single day?

Do you look around you?

Do you listen?

Do you smell?

Do you taste?

Do you touch?

I bet you do.

So you are like a scientist, but you know what?

Scientists don't just look around and listen and taste and touch and just not even think anything about it.

After they do all of those things, they stop and think, and they think, what can I learn from this?

So my friends were going to learn today how to observe like a scientist.

and the first thing that we're going to do, we're going to go outside and we're going to learn, or we're going to observe around us and learn how to think like a scientist as we observe.

So are you ready?

All right, let's go outside.

All right friends, today we're going to do an observing activity that you can do anywhere, you can do outside in your backyard.

You can do it inside.

You can even go to a park, which is where I am right now.

And once you find your good spot, you are just going to have a seat and you're going to observe things around you.

So I'm going to do that.

I'm just going to sit still and then start to observe things around me.

(birds chirping) All right, I'm observing a lot of different things right now.

The first thing that I'm observing, I'm observing all of the leaves that are around me.

Look at all of these brown leaves.

There's lots of brown, crunchy leaves around me.

And I'm wondering, I wonder if you know what season it is because of all of these brown, crunchy leaves.

I also noticed, as I was looking around, I noticed the trees above me.

The trees above me don't have any leaves on them at all.

They're completely bare.

So as I observed that and I observe the leaves on the ground, again, I'm kind of wondering what season could it be?

Do you know what season it could be, whenever there are no leaves on the tree and there are lots of leaves on the ground?

Okay.

I'm also observing that the grass that I'm sitting on is a little wet.

My bottom's getting a little wet as I am sitting here.

And I wonder why, because I know it hasn't rained in a while, but the ground still feels a little wet.

I'm wondering why that is.

Do you have an idea about why that might be?

All right, let me think.

I'm gonna observe a few more things.

Oh, look up at this sky.

Right now, the sky is very, very blue.

There are not many clouds in the sky.

I'm also noticing that the sun isn't very high in the sky right now.

So do you think, you know what time of the day it is?

Is it lunchtime?

Is it around dinner time?

What do you think?

I'm gonna use some of my other senses?

I can hear that there are people talking at the park.

I can also hear a kind of a kick and I can use my sense of sight, and I see that there's someone over there playing soccer, but I also can just hear him playing soccer, even if I didn't know that it, if I didn't see it, I could hear somebody playing soccer.

I also hear music from far away.

So that must mean that someone's playing music.

I also I'm starting to hear the jingle, jingle, jingle of a dog walking by.

So I'm using my sense of hearing to notice lots of different things.

Oh, I don't know if you can hear that, but I hear a plane going by.

I wonder if you'll be able to see the plane.

(plane engine roaring) Flying overhead.

(plane engine roaring) And you know what?

Whenever I see a plane flying overhead, I wonder how do planes fly?

Who thought of planes in the first place?

Why did they look so much like birds?

We might be able to learn some of those answers and scientists helped figure out how to make things fly.

So observing things can teach you all about the world.

Okay, I'm going to keep on thinking and observing.

(sniffs around) Ooh, (sniffs around) you know what I smell?

I know you can't smell it, but I can smell a fire.

I bet someone around this park, in this neighborhood maybe is grilling something or burning some leaves or doing something with a fire.

Maybe even just has a fire going in their fireplace because I can smell a little bit of smoke.

And also if I kind of bring these leaves up to my nose, they smell a little bit different too.

They smell like leaves.

Sometimes have you ever walked outside on a nice fall day, especially after maybe a rain, you can smell the leaves.

The leaves have a very different smell.

And if you observe and use your nose, you can smell the leaves, maybe even before you see them.

All right, so let me think.

So I used my sense of sight to observe lots of different things around me and some of them I've just observed, but some of them have made me think of different questions, things that I want to learn.

I've also used my hearing to observe different things.

I've heard lots of different things around me.

I also used my sense of touch.

I touched the leaves to see that they're crunchy, my bottoms touching the grass, and it's getting a little bit wet through the grass and through my pants.

So my sense of touch can also help us observe.

And then I also use my sense of smell.

Remember I said, my sense of smell told me that I could smell a fire around and I'm wondering where it could be.

And you know what?

I'm also wondering if I could tell the difference between a barbecue fire or a fire in the fireplace.

I wonder if they smell different.

Have you ever noticed that?

Have you ever observed the smell of different fires.

Or maybe you have a candle at your house and it smells different than whatever mom or dad is cooking something on a grill.

So different things smell different.

And my friends we were observing, so many different things.

Oh, I can observe right now.

Some more people are walking by too, and I can hear different sounds.

- [Passerby] Okay.

- All right, so my friends, one thing that you can do today, anytime you want, you can do what I'm doing and just sit, be still and quiet and observe everything around you.

You might notice new things that you haven't noticed before.

And you also might start to ask more questions and wonder why things work or why things look a certain way, why things sound a certain way, why things smell a certain way, why things feel a certain way.

Now, we're probably not going to taste anything out here, right?

That would be kind of gross if I tasted a leaf.

But maybe you can observe something in your kitchen and taste different things in your kitchen.

All right, let's go back to our classroom and learn a little bit more about observation.

All right, my friends, today we have a book to read and it's called "Observe It!".

That's what we just did outside.

We observed things outside.

And right now I bet you're observing things around your room and you're observing me.

Maybe you're observing what I'm wearing.

You're observing what's around me, in my classroom.

You might be doing lots of different things with your observation skills.

But now let's observe this book and let's read this book.

So you're going to look at the pictures and you're going to use your sense of hearing to listen to my words, to learn even more about observation.

So this book is called, "Observe It!".

And look, there's an exclamation mark at the end.

Whenever we see an exclamation mark, we get so excited, "Observe It!"

And it is a Science Sleuths book.

Let's look.

Observe It!

And it's by Azza Sharkawy.

And this book is by, is published by Crabtree Publishing Company.

And they gave me permission to read this book to you.

Observe It!

Oh my goodness, there is a table of contents.

A table of contents in an informational book tells us where to find everything that we're going to read about.

So we're going to learn about tools for measuring.

We're going to learn about observing the properties.

Oh, so many things.

And then the numbers next to it, tell us what page those things will be on.

So let's read, we have a lot to read.

This is a pretty long book.

Exploring our world.

And that's the heading of this page.

How do ice cubes feel?

How do they feel?

Cold, right?

What does thunder sound like?

Boom.

What colors are the leaves in fall?

That's my favorite season because I love when the leaves change to orange and red and yellow, and sometimes even purple.

We use our senses to answer these kinds of questions.

Most people have five senses.

They are sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing.

Our senses, help us explore and learn about the world around us.

And we talked a little bit about that.

Scientists use their senses to learn too.

Scientists are people who studied the natural world.

The natural world includes living and nonliving things, such as people, animals, rocks, and water.

Of those things, I just said, which ones are living?

People, animals, rocks, and water.

Oh, I hope you said people and animals are living.

Which ones are nonliving?

The rocks and the water.

Can you think of other things that are living or nonliving?

Tell someone that you're sitting by.

All right, let's keep reading.

It says, we use our eyes to see, our nose to smell, our ears to hear and our tongue to taste.

We feel things by touching them with our skin.

What's that little girl using?

She's using her nose to smell that beautiful flower.

Oh, and then there's a warning.

Sometimes whenever you're doing science you have to have warnings.

It says, remember, you must never smell, taste or touch something if you are not sure what it is, it may not be safe.

So if you are observing this week, make sure that you don't taste or smell or touch things that you aren't sure about.

Ask a grown-up first.

Observe with your senses.

To observe is to use your senses, to learn more about things.

Look for a rock outside, pick it up.

It feels hard in your hand, you might see dirt on it.

You can see it's color and shape.

You are observing the rock, using your sense of sight and touch at the same time.

And here's some questions you might ask whenever you are observing.

What shape is it?

Is it hard or soft?

Is it rough or smooth?

An observation is the information and details you get from using your senses.

The more details you get by observing the better you can understand something.

Scientists use their observations to ask questions that will help them learn new information.

They collect and record this information.

So like I said, scientists use observations, but they do even more with them.

They don't just look at something and go, "Oh, that's a yellow flower."

But instead they might say, oh, that is a bright yellow flower, and it's more yellow than this flower.

I wonder why that is?

Is it a different flower than this flower?

Are they the same type?

I wonder if they are the same type, why does is that one more yellow?

Think about that.

That's a lot of work after just observing one little yellow flower.

This picture says, or this little circle says, explore it.

Look at the picture below, which of the following statements is not an observation of this picture?

Explain your thinking.

So look at that picture.

Which one of these is not an observation?

The bee is on a flower.

Is that something we can observe?

Yes.

Bees make honey, is that something we can observe from that picture?

Is the bee making honey in this picture?

No, that's not what we're observing.

We might know that, and we might learn about that from observing a bee even more, but we can't observe it just from this picture.

And number three, it says, the flower is yellow.

Is that an observation?

It is.

So the only one that wasn't an observation was that bees make honey.

And we know that and we could observe that, but we're not observing it from this picture.

Making observations.

Scientists make observations using one or more of their senses.

Which senses could you use to observe this flower?

What do you think?

Well, right now you're seeing the flower, you're looking at it, so definitely your sense of sight.

What do you like to do with flowers sometimes?

Smell them, right?

So we could use our sense of smell whenever we observed this flower.

Could we use our sense of touch?

We could, and we could think, oh, the pedals are so soft, but what do you know about roses?

Roses sometimes have thorns on their stem.

So if you pick them, ouch, it might hurt.

Now, would you use your sense of taste on a flower like this?

Probably not.

Would you use your sense of hearing?

Do flowers really make much noise?

No.

You could use your sense of hearing and you could say the flower doesn't make any noise.

But we won't hear anything.

Okay, let's see.

You could notice the color.

You could feel the soft, smooth pedals.

The flower might smell good.

These are all observations.

And so it says my flower smell, strong sweet scent.

So they described the flower even more.

And so instead of just saying it smells good, they've said it smells sweet, and that it's a strong scent is not just like you have to go (sniffing).

I can't smell it, I can barely smell it.

You can just take one little whip and go, oh, that smells good.

See, it has light pink pedals, three green leaves on each stem.

So scientists wouldn't just look at it and say, it's a flower, it's pink.

They might say it's soft pink pedals, three stems.

It's this high, touch, soft, smooth silky pedals.

Hear, you can't hear a flower.

That's what the book says.

Taste, it is not safe to taste a wildflower.

Well, remember that warning, we shouldn't taste things that we don't know.

Which senses could you learn, could you use to learn more about an orange?

Would it be okay to taste an orange?

Yes.

And what does an orange taste like?

It's very, juicy, it's sweet.

Sometimes it might be a little sour.

You might say, "Ooh, it's yummy."

But some of you might say, "Ooh, I don't like that."

But it is sweet and sour at the same time.

We can also say, it's orange, it's round.

How do oranges feel?

They're kind of soft and squishy a little bit, not too squishy.

If you have a too squishy of an orange, you probably don't wanna eat it.

The peal is usually a little bumpy, but not too bumpy.

Can you hear an orange?

Not really.

Maybe whenever you're opening it up, you might hear it squirt, right?

Tools that help observe.

Some things are too small to see or too soft to hear using only our senses, tools make what we observe bigger or louder so we can observe more closely and learn more information.

This boy is looking through a hand lens.

Do you see that?

You might call it a magnifying glass, but scientists call them hand lenses.

It is a tool that makes things look bigger.

It helps us observe more closely.

Seeing things closely helps the children make observations with more detail.

So sometimes you need a tool to help you see things.

What if you're observing a bug?

That would be hard to see.

And so you might need a tool to help you make it look bigger.

Some tools help scientists hear things that are hard to hear using only your ears.

Do you know what that's called?

What the doctor uses to listen to your heart?

It's called a stethoscope.

A stethoscope is a tool that helps doctors hear sounds inside your body, such as your heartbeat.

Oh, what is this?

It's a telescope.

Some tools help us see things that are far away.

Stars look very small because they are so far away.

Now, are stars really small, like a bug?

Like we might need to use a tool to look at a bug because it's so small.

No, stars are huge, but they are so far away that they look small to us.

And so a telescope is a tool that makes stars look larger and closer to us.

Can you think of another tool that can help you see things better, hear things better, smell things better, taste things better or touch things better?

If you do tell someone near you.

Tools for measurement or for measuring, tools for measuring.

Another way scientists make observations is by measuring.

To measure is to find out the size of something, size or amount of something.

Measurements are important, they give more details than observing with just our senses.

This scientist is using a tape measure to measure how tall that plant is.

Why do you think it might be important to measure things?

Maybe you want to learn how quickly things grow or maybe if your dirt is good and it's helping things grow, or maybe you add something to your dirt and then the plant starts growing faster.

You want to learn, you want to measure it to keep track of that.

We all use different tools to take different kinds of measurements.

Rulers, yard, or meter sticks and tape measures are all tools that can measure how tall or long something is.

A balance measure, measures how heavy something is.

A thermometer measures, how hot or cold it is.

Do you have any of these tools in your house?

Maybe after today's lesson, you can go for a hunt around your house to see if you have these things, ask a grownup to go with you.

Record it.

Oh my goodness, this is a big part of how scientists use their observation skills.

It is important for scientists to record their observations.

They share the information they record with other scientists.

You can record your observations in many ways.

Some scientists use pictures and words.

So this little boy observed a dragon fly and he drew a careful drawing of it and used words.

You can also record, what is she using?

A camera.

You can record with a camera.

Some scientists record observations, using numbers.

Charts, graphs, and tables, help organize and compare observations such as measurements.

The girl below used the thermometer to measure the temperature in different places at her school.

The bar graph makes it easy to compare these observations.

And here's the little girl's chart.

And it says she compared temperatures and here are the locations.

In the sun, it was 86 degrees Fahrenheit.

In shade, it was 72 degrees Fahrenheit.

Inside, it was 75 degrees, Fahrenheit and inside a closet, it was 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

So where was it hottest?

Which bar is the tallest?

The red one outside, it was the hottest.

It is all in the details.

That's what that title says.

Scientists are careful to make good observations.

Careful observations can be checked by other scientists.

A good record helps prove to other scientists whether or not the observations answered the question.

So how do you make a detailed observation?

Number one, take your time.

Don't just rush through it.

Number two, if it is safe, use as many of your senses that you can.

Then ask yourself, what color is it?

What shape is it?

How would I describe its size?

How does it feel?

What does it sound like?

What does it smell like?

What does it taste like?

But only if it's safe.

Use tools that can help you see closer up, use tools to measure.

Record your information as exactly as you can and share your observations.

Now look at these two observations of bugs and I want you to tell me which one sounds more like a scientist.

This one data A says, six legs, two feelers, three body parts, two eyes, brown body, one inch long.

Does that give us a lot of information?

Give me a thumbs up if it does.

It does.

Now, listen to this one, data B. Legs, feelers, brown and dark little body.

I mean, it gave us some information, but how many legs does it have?

It doesn't tell us that, it doesn't tell us how big it is.

So this one sounds much more like a scientist.

Observe the properties.

Objects have properties or characteristics that we can observe and describe using our senses.

Properties are things such as size, color, weight, shape, and texture, or how things feel.

It is easier to describe and compare objects by sorting them into groups based on one or more of their properties.

Grouping objects helped show how they are alike and different.

And then it says, can you solve this riddle by the description of the mystery objects properties?

What is black and white and round all over?

And this picture gives you a clue.

What does it look like he's playing or she's playing?

Soccer, a soccer ball.

Scientists observe the properties of objects and ask questions to help classify or group the item.

So look at these items and group them, which ones are soft?

Maybe the kitten is soft, the feather is soft.

The duck might be kind of soft?

Which one is heavy?

The elephant and the weight.

The balloon is probably kind of heavy.

The iceberg is heavy.

Which one can float?

Ooh, the balloon can float and so can the iceberg.

And the duck can float too.

So sometimes you might group items by how they feel or how they look.

All right, and I friends, I'm gonna go ahead and end that book right now, but it gave us so much information about how to observe things.

So today I want you to think about how you might observe some different things around you.

I want you to go on a walk around your house and observe things around your house.

Make sure to look at them, to smell them, to listen to them, to taste them maybe, if it's safe and to touch them.

And you might even want to record what you observe, but think like a scientist and record like a scientist too.

Because remember scientists make very detailed observations and then they write them down.

So friends do that this week.

And next week we will learn even more about how to use our senses and also our tools to help us make even better observations.

I'll see you next week, bye.

(bright upbeat music) - [Narrator] Teaching in Room Nine is made possible with support of Bank of America, Dana Brown Charitable Trust, Emerson, and viewers like you.

(bright upbeat music)