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I will be teaching about observations and inferences in my middle school science classes this week. What I am struggling with is where to draw the line on what an observation is. The statement "It is an apple" in my mind is an inference because they made observations about the object having a red outer skin, the flesh being sweet and soft, etc. However, in the mind of many of my middle school students it is an observation. I'm also not sure about if they say "It tastes like an apple" would that be an inference or observation?

Hi Cassie, I am glad you brought up this question as to the difference between an observation and inference which initially I thought was pretty obvious. However, the more I thought about what you said, I could understand better why some students might be confused. I usually tell students that an observation involves using one of the 5 senses (sight, touch, taste, smell, or hearing). Therefore, by saying "this is an apple" you are not mentioning any of the senses and therefore it is an inference based on the observations of colour (sight) sweetness (taste), shape (sight), odour (smell) and firmness (touch). I would also say that the statement, "it tastes like an apple" is not any different from "it tastes sweet" and because the sense of taste is being referred to, this is an observation. I hope this helps and I will be interested to see if anyone has any different perspectives. I enjoy these types of questions which I initially think are simple but get me to reflect on my own thinking and assumptions.