“All knowledge begins in observation (30),” According to Sparks of Genius, chapter 3. Observation requires patience and determination. This past week we have been studying the scientific method in my 4th grade classroom. When we studied observation I asked my students to write down everything they saw me do over a three-minute period.
The activity:
As the song, Candle In The Wind, by Elton John played in the background. I held up a “candle”, a lighter, I lit the candle, blew it out and repeated this process. My student’s saw, fire and the smoke of the blown out candle. They were able to smell the smoke as well. Everything they were observing would have made the students conclude that their teacher was continuously lighting and blowing out a candle until…I bit into it!
Perceiving…it appeared as though I had a simple white candle in my hand. It had a flame and produced smoke. However, when I bit into the “candle,” there was a gasp from the crowd. “She just ate a candle,” is what one my students shouted in the crowd. It appeared as though I did. This is where I was able to explain to my students that what you perceive isn’t always the same. We talked about why they thought it was a candle by explaining all the physical properties of the object, using their personal background knowledge, and based on their observations.
Perception, what do I see, what do I know? I asked my students think this way as we concluded the experiment. They explained what they saw and then what they knew to be factual. Facts: it was white, it was flammable, and it was shaped like a small candle. Using their senses and background knowledge, one would have concluded it was a candle up until I bit it. This is where I explained to my students that we all perceive things differently based on our own observations. It was not a candle that I was walking around lighting it was a potato with a small almond sliver acting as a wick. They were in shock!
Perception plays an important role in my content area topic. One of my objectives for content area is to get my students to connect prior knowledge and experiences to the pictorial representation of characters, events, or information in a book. As students make connections they way they observe, hear, and perceive information will influence their connections to the text, just as it did with the candle activity.
I chose this video to display perception. This is similar to how I did my science activity in my class. It is interesting to hear the student’s perception of the experiment. I hope to relate this to thinking and digging deeper as my students read. Re-reading to really dig into the beef of the story!
