My second science 10 lab was to test observation skills. The class was each given 2 papers. One that explained the step-by-step lab procedure, the other to note observations before and after 10 minutes of putting 2 chemicals together. Each pair of chemicals were mostly merging one from a PH scale, and a chemical compound off the periodic table, sometimes one of the two swapping out for being a molecule of a polyatomic ion instead. We received the papers a day in advance to look over them and not be too lost when doing the actual lab, so the next day was when we were put into partners to synthesize the chemicals. We each tried our best to have our observations similar, but ended up writing quite different observations, which was good because it was encouraged to have differences instead of seeming like you piggybacked off someone. Most of my observations remained the same from the start of the new chemical composition to 10 minutes later, so I simply drew an arrow one box over to the table in the next row to represent that my observations stayed the same. We tried doing 2 chemicals at a time, then piggybacking observations but immediately stopped after noticing that our observations were different, making us need to redo the first 2 chemical synthesis’s. I was instructed to use scientific sounding words but, I at the same time tried to keep it simple, which made me not only have to be careful with observations, but also be careful with descriptive word choice. Having to tell our partners our observations to make sure that we were at least close to being on the right track was also a promising idea, to triple check our facts, and give ourselves a reality check in terms of understanding descriptive language. It took a lot of collaboration and open-mindedness to keep a mutual understanding in different (possibly fully opposing) observations, because we had to check each other’s work. This was a problem because it’s difficult to say that something is wrong when you already have an answer you are unsure of but since you wrote it, you want to hope you are the correct one; meaning it is hard to confirm somebody else’s work when you already have a bias answer. Hearing somebody else’s answers helped me by reminding me what categories of observations to look out for (colour, smell, texture, etc.) and what order would best make sense to have them in, so as to not forget any observations. When looking back on the experience, I feel as though I slightly blocked out my partner’s ideas too much, which made me sound biased when asking for an explanation of my partner’s answer. 

Both of us seemed to successfully advocate for our observations to each other, just having a hard time accepting that our answer wasn’t the only one. I wasn’t able to support most of my partner’s answers but, I did encourage some of them by admitting that they were on the right track or sounded better than some of my answers. Most of the ones that I didn’t believe were right, I simply tried to only silently deny them and seem like I was acquiescing them and ask to make sure the claims were true because of certain totally opposing factors in my answer(s). Of course, one of us was wrong each time. I tried my best to stay logical instead of biased, but my small frustration of differences in answers drove me to slight biases, same for my partner.

I believe that this Lab helped me develop in core competencies by showing me the results of emotional awareness when there are multiple answers for the same question, and exercised my ability to express how I perceive something in difference to somebody else, and how to confirm if one is correct without bias.