Looking on purpose

About this video

Zara waters the bean plant on her windowsill every morning and has seen it a hundred times. One Saturday she really looks at it, and notices something new: the stem and the leaves all lean towards the window. Seeing is something we do all day without noticing. To observe is to look carefully and on purpose, to find out what something is really like, and what you notice is called an observation.

A careful observer writes it down at the time. Memory changes, and it is easy to remember what you expected instead of what you saw. Zara writes the date and holds a ruler by the pot: the top of the stem is about 3 cm nearer the window than the bottom. "About 3 cm" can be checked and compared with tomorrow, in a way that "a lot" can't.

She also keeps two things apart. "The stem leans to the window" is what she saw. "The plant wants the light" is an idea about why, and it might be right or wrong. Observing comes first, and ideas about what it means come after, separately. Science starts here: before anyone can explain something, they have to notice it carefully enough to describe it to someone who wasn't there. This video goes with the Looking Carefully lesson of Science Level 1 on Knaph.

Transcript

1. 0:00Zara has seen her bean plant a hundred times. Has she observed it?
2. 0:05One day she looks on purpose. The whole plant leans to the window.
3. 0:11She writes it down at the time, with the date, every morning.
4. 0:17What she saw is one thing. Why it leans is only an idea.
5. 0:23A lot can't be checked. About three centimetres can.
6. 0:29Science starts with observing. Looking carefully, on purpose.