Making Observations, A Sensory Scavenger Hunt (2024)

Discipline: Scientific Skill Practice
Age Range: All ages
Estimated Time: 20 minutes
What you need: An area outdoors or indoors students can explore objects around them. Also, download our Sensory Scavenger Hunt Guide at the bottom of this article.

This activity focuses on making observations. Ask: “Do you know what it means to make an observation?”

Making an observation is a way to learn and notice more about the world around us.

Ask: “Can you think of anyone or anything who makes observations?”

That’s right! Scientists, doctors, teachers, detectives, your parents, artists, animals, and even you make observations every day.

You can use all five of your senses to make observations: your sense of sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste. Today when making observations outside, don’t use your sense of taste.

Now, let’s practice! Go outside (or stay indoors if don’t have access to the outdoors at this time). Find an object in nature that you and your scientist would like to observe.

Take a close look at your object. What do you notice using your sense of sight? Try describing the size, color, shape, etc.

Now, feel your object. What do you feel? Does it feel smooth? Rough? Cold? Bumpy?

Next, give your object a sniff! What does it smell like?

Last, try our sense of hearing. Your object may not make a sound on its own, but can you make any sounds with it? Try tapping it, crumbling it, or scratching it!

Now that you’ve practiced making some observations, see what else there is to observe around you. You can use the chart on the next page to complete the Sensory Scavenger Hunt with your scientist by finding some more interesting objects in nature!

Helpful Hints: Adults, if you are doing this activity with your child(ren, ask them the questions and have a discussion before moving on to the next item on the student guide.

New words: Observation, making an observation means to learn and notice more about the world around us using our five senses.

Making Observations, A Sensory Scavenger Hunt (2024)

FAQs

Making Observations, A Sensory Scavenger Hunt? ›

You can use all five of your senses to make observations: your sense of sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste. Today when making observations outside, don't use your sense of taste. Now, let's practice!

What are the 5 senses making observations? ›

You can use all five of your senses to make observations: your sense of sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste. Today when making observations outside, don't use your sense of taste. Now, let's practice!

How can you use your senses to make observations? ›

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.

What are the observations that you gathered using your senses? ›

An observation is any information that is gathered with the senses, which include vision, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. Instruments such as microscopes, telescopes, and thermometers can extend our senses and our ability to make observations.

What observations are made using the senses? ›

The Five Senses

The most powerful form of evidence is observation. Through our senses of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell, we are continually gathering information about the world around us and sending that information to the brain for processing.

What are 5 observations examples? ›

Some examples of scientific observations include:
  • Noticing leaves changing in the fall.
  • Smelling wood burning.
  • Hearing a dog bark at the doorbell.
  • Noticing a change in protein expression with a disease state.
  • Feeling cold air when the refrigerator opens.

Which sense is the most important when making observations? ›

By far the most important organs of sense are our eyes. We perceive up to 80% of all impressions by means of our sight. And if other senses such as taste or smell stop working, it's the eyes that best protect us from danger.

How to make observations for kids? ›

Younger audiences: Start the observation process by making 2-3 “I notice…, I wonder...., It reminds me of…” statements. Older audiences: Take your observations to the next level by recording them in your journal. Take time to draw your object from different perspectives.

What is observation for kids? ›

Observation can also be described as paying close attention to a child's behaviors, interactions, activities, and interests, and noticing all aspects of the child's development. 4. Both definitions stress the importance of observing with intention and observing to learn about a child.

What do children learn from using their senses to observe? ›

Young children experience their world through their senses. All these experiences, seeing, hearing, touching, smelling and tasting, give them information about how things work and why.

What is sensory observation? ›

Observation can often be confused with labelling what you notice around you. But it is much more than that! In an observation the observer uses all the senses actively. The child can see, hear, smell, feel and taste the object/phenomenon that is in focus.

What is a sense observation? ›

Definition. The skill of observing involves using all of the senses, as appropriate, to find out about the characteristics, properties and attributes of objects, places and events. Observations can be made directly with the senses or indirectly through the use of instruments that extend our capacity to observe.

What is an example of observation senses? ›

An observation is information you gather by using your five senses. Those senses are sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. You make an observation when you see a bird or hear it sing. You make an observation when you touch, smell, or taste an orange.

What are data observations using the 5 senses? ›

Qualitative observation is a research method in which researchers collect data using their five senses, sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing. It is a subjective method of gathering information as it depends on the researcher's sensory organs.

What are the senses used in the observation process? ›

To spark your student's curiosity about science and help them develop observation skills, encourage them to use their five senses. By seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, and tasting something, they are actively engaged in learning through observation.

What senses do you use to observe patients? ›

Patient assessment is an essential EMS provider skill that improves with experience and education, but are you wearing blinders? I believe that all EMS providers can improve this process and efficiency by using all bodily senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste.

What is making observation? ›

Making observations is both a sensory experience using your body and a thinking experience using your mind. Find an object. Look around you and find some sort of object that is no larger than your hand. This can be something natural (rock, leaf, flower) or human-made if you can't make it outside.

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