Field Notes 9

For my ninth week of field notes I chose to conduct my observation in the morning during the first class period between the times of 9:15 to 10:20 am on Monday October 27^th. I chose this time to see I there were any changes to the general patterns I had observed during this time frame during previous weeks observation. I also hoped to see if there were any student group arrivals at the school during class periods similar to the one I had observed during the last two weeks of field work.

I began my field work in the oxygen building which was empty, similar to how it had been during previous weeks of field work. However soon after I began my observations a pair of students arrived from the detection of the Nitrogen building. They then began to study from a textbook while engaging in light conversation. A few minutes after the studying began the students were joined by two more students who, while initially continued to engage in a similar level of study, quickly turned the activities into mainly conversation. It appeared like this was going to remain the pattern for the period do I decided to begin observations elsewhere and then return to see if anything had changed.

After the end of my first observation period I decided to check the Nitrogen building to see what type of activity was going on in that building. It seemed that there was similar activity in this building as there was in the previous one there where two groups of two students engaging in similar behavior to the first small group in the previous building. Despite this similarity the student in the nitrogen building the students in this building where studying a different subject leading me to believe that these students were in another grade than the students in the oxygen building. This behavior continued for nearly fifteen minutes before both groups moved to sit near each other and began studying together. Unlike the group in the previous building however, this group did not begin to converse the same way and continued to work on studying.

After twenty minute of observations I decided to see if there had been any changes in the group in the oxygen building. At this point the group of students in the oxygen building had dispersed and there were no new students in the commons area of that building. At the same time there I also noticed that there was a lack of students in the area under the awnings and that the general atmosphere of the school had e gotten quieter. After a little looking it appeared that there was a large group of students in the cafeteria that had not been there at the beginning of the day. This group was actually not one group but several smaller groups that where likely from other buildings as the group from the oxygen was there still conversing as before. I am unsure whether or not this grouping is self-constructed or if the school staff put the groups there to reduce noise in the buildings but that will have to be determined during my next observation.