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Key Concepts:
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What skills do scientists use to learn about the world?
What do physical scientists study?
 (write the key concepts in your ISN, but you don’t need to leave space
to answer them)
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Key Terms: (write these with enough space for you to define
each term in your ISN)
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Science
Observing
Qualitative observation
Quantitative observation
Inferring
Predicting
Chemistry
Physics
Ms. Fuentes
Email
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Pay attention during class  I’m here to help you.
Look for key words and important concepts, and
review them.
As we read the textbook, notice which words and
concepts are in CAPS or in bold; these are
important, and probably something that can be
easily reviewed and memorized.
If you can talk about it, and explain it, you’ve got a
good grasp on it. If you have trouble talking about
a concept, you need to review it.

Review  and ask questions!
 Next: My goals for you

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We’re going to learn the material
We’re going to learn how to learn (better!)
By taking organized notes so they are useful to us when
we study
 By learning how to process information in a useful way
 By making models and doing projects so new information
makes better sense to us by breaking it down into things
we already understand
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And especially…
Have fun learning about the world around
you!
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At the start of each new section, we’ll go over key terms that I will
expect you to learn and understand by the end of the section.
We’ll review them together at the start of each section and put
them in our ISN with enough space to define each one.
We will go over key concepts from each section, which I will also
expect you to learn and understand. We’ll review them together at
the start of each section and put them in our ISN, but we don’t
need to leave space to answer them. The Key Concepts are there to
guide us as we learn the sections. By the end of each section, after
review, you should be able to comfortably discuss the key
concepts with other students. If you don’t feel comfortable, you
will know that you need to review the section a bit more 
We’ll then fill in our ISNs with other information that we think is
important and helpful to us learning the material.
Our ISN will be our guide to what we are learning/have learned
section by section. We will use it to simplify the information in the
book.

Key Concepts:


What skills do scientists use to learn about the world?
What do physical scientists study?
 (write the key concepts in your ISN, but you don’t need to leave space
to answer them)

Key Terms: (write these with enough space for you to define
each term in your ISN)








Science
Observing
Qualitative observation
Quantitative observation
Inferring
Predicting
Chemistry
Physics

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Your textbook defines it as “a way of learning
about the natural world by gathering
information.”
What does science look like?

How to scientists do “science”?
Scientists use the skills of observing, inferring
and predicting to learn more about the natural
world.
Some (but not all) of the skills used by scientists are:
 Observing

Qualitative vs. Quantitative observations
 Using your senses to obtain data
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Inferring
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Creating a possible explanation for something observed
Predicting
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Making a “forecast” of what will happen in the future
based on past evidence
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Deals with
descriptions
Data observed but
not measured
Colors, textures,
smells, tastes,
appearance, etc
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Deals with numbers
Data can be
measured
Length, height, area,
volume, weight,
speed, time, temp.,
humidity, cost, ages,
etc.



A large(ish) painting
Blue colors with
swirls
Texture shows brush
strokes
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29in x 36in
Weighs 8.5 pounds
Approx.125 years old
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Robust
aroma
Brown
liquid
Strong
taste
Cup is
white
•
•
•
•
12 ounces
100 degrees
Cup is 7 inches in height
Cost 4.95
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What qualitative observations can we make?
What quantitative observations can we make?
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For each image, write
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Your description of the image
1 observation (could be qualitative or quantitative,
but they will probably be qualitative for these
particular slides)
1 inference
1 prediction of what will come next (has to be based
on what you have observed and inferred. Predictions
need to be useful and related to the information you
have.)

Physical science is the study of matter, energy, and
the changes they undergo. The two main areas are:
Chemistry is the study of the properties of matter and
how matter changes.
 Physics is the study of matter and energy and how they
interact.
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Where do we see physical science?
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Think: how do the following people use some knowledge
of physical science to complete their jobs?
 Photographers
 Piano tuners
 Firefighters
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You need to be able to define the key terms
You need to understand observing, inferring,
predicting
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Do you know how observations are made?
Do you know what an inference is?
Can you make good predictions when given
information?
You need to know the difference between
qualitative and quantitative observations
You need to know the two main branches of
physical science: physics and chemistry