During my years as a researcher studying deceptive caching behavior in squirrels—yes, squirrels actually pretend to bury nuts when they think they’re being watched—I experienced firsthand what it means to pursue a question that genuinely puzzles you. I spent countless hours observing, collecting messy data, and wrestling with questions that had no clear answers. The research process was iterative and uncertain. Initial observations led to new questions, which required different approaches, which generated unexpected results that challenged my assumptions.
This is what real science looks like: It’s not confirming what we already know; it’s making sense of phenomena that puzzle us. Yet somewhere between these moments of natural curiosity and the high school lab bench, we often lose this spirit of authentic inquiry. Students follow predetermined lab procedures, knowing the “right” answer before they start. They memorize facts without ever experiencing the uncertainty and discovery that drive real scientific work. They stop asking, “Why?” and start asking, “Will this be on the test?” The fact is, we’ve turned science into “learning about” rather than “figuring out.”
It’s About Making Sense
This past fall in my Sensemaking in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math course at Boston University, I gave my undergraduate students an assignment: Choose a moment of a young person’s curiosity, then do your own sensemaking about it. One student investigated preK students who had discovered a giant mushroom in their schoolyard after a rainy August week. She watched them ask, “When did it start growing? It’s huge, and it wasn’t here yesterday! Why is it on the ground and on the trees?” Although classroom manipulatives are valuable curated experiences, the mushroom was different. It was real and unplanned; it was shaped by weather and environment. “Nature offers authentic opportunities for children to make sense of the world in ways that are unpredictable, complex, and deeply engaging,” my undergraduate student wrote.
Another of my students examined why 4th graders struggled with equivalent fractions. Students were asked to draw tenths and twelfths—the whole activity was to be done on paper—but many students couldn’t visualize the pieces. Her sensemaking led her to ask, “How could this lesson be more hands-on? Where do we see fractions in everyday life? What materials can model them?” She landed on cooking, baking, and science experiments, on real contexts where fractions can be touched, manipulated—and understood.
We didn’t give answers upfront. We positioned students as capable investigators with their own ideas worth exploring.
Both of my undergraduate students discovered the same insight: Sensemaking requires authentic, hands-on contexts, not just curated materials or abstract worksheets. When students experience authentic inquiry, they discover that real contexts matter, that questions drive learning, and that uncertainty is productive.
Here’s what’s easy to forget: Children are already experts at sensemaking. Watch elementary students on the playground, and you’ll see them constantly testing theories. They’re figuring out how high they can swing, what happens when they mix dirt and water, and why the ball bounces differently on different surfaces. So, the challenge isn’t creating curiosity from scratch—it’s preserving and channeling the curiosity students already possess.
This past fall, with science specialist Brenda Richardson, I co-taught at William Monroe Trotter School, a Boston Public School with which Boston University has maintained a partnership for more than 15 years. I introduced 1st graders to blue death feigning beetles, remarkable creatures with a survival strategy indicated in their name. When threatened, they flip onto their backs and play dead, legs in the air, completely still.
I didn’t explain the adaptation first. I simply asked the students (both my observing undergraduate students and the Trotter 1st graders) to observe and draw what they noticed. The room filled with questions: “Why would playing dead help an insect survive?” “Do all beetles do this?” “How do they know when it’s safe to move again?”
Then we took our investigation outdoors, where students discovered insects everywhere using different survival strategies: camouflage against bark, quick escapes into leaf litter or under rocks. This wasn’t a worksheet about insect adaptations. This was sensemaking in action.
What made this work? We didn’t give answers upfront. We positioned students as capable investigators with their own ideas worth exploring. And we connected learning to something they could immediately observe in their own environment, to both the beetles in the classroom and the insects outside.
“What Does This Remind You Of?”
One of the most transformative strategies to cultivate curiosity I’ve learned comes from researcher Brian Reiser (2017) at Northwestern University. His team noticed that teachers who were most successful at fostering student sensemaking weren’t just asking students to observe phenomena. They were also asking them what the phenomenon reminded them of.
This subtle shift changes everything.
I’ve led numerous professional development sessions for K–12 teachers using OpenSciEd’s middle school unit on sound. During one of the sessions, we observed the students investigating a homemade record player (made from a spinning platform, sewing needle, and paper cone). Their initial questions focused on the physical setup: “What is the record made of?” “What is the needle doing?” These are fine questions, but they don’t necessarily lead to core scientific concepts.
But when teachers asked, “What does this remind you of?” students made different connections: “It reminds me of hearing a plane before I see it,” “Of hearing music when I’m swimming underwater,” and “Of those rumble strips on the highway that make sound when you drive over them.”
Suddenly, students weren’t just puzzling over a record player. They were connecting to bigger ideas about how physical interactions create sound, how sound travels through different materials, and how vibrations eventually reach our ears (OpenSciEd, 2019). By tapping into their personal experiences, students elevated their questions from simple observations to deeper scientific inquiry.
This matters for equity: When we validate students’ experiences, we honor diverse backgrounds as sources of expertise. The student who’s never been to a science museum but has listened to sounds underwater has genuine knowledge to contribute.
The Value of Surprise
Traditional “cookbook” labs, where students follow prescribed steps toward a predetermined outcome, might reinforce concepts, but they don’t develop the critical thinking and problem-solving skills at the heart of scientific practice (Windschitl et al., 2020). The real world doesn’t come with step-by-step instructions.
Instead of handing students a procedure to observe osmosis in plant cells, what if we challenged them to figure out why cut flowers wilt faster in saltwater than in freshwater? Instead of verifying a known principle, they’re investigating a genuine puzzle.
This requires us to rethink what “successful” lab experiences look like. When I’m teaching, whether it’s my undergraduate students or younger ones, the loudest days are often the most productive because students are debating evidence from their science notebooks, going public with partially formed ideas, and working together to construct better explanations.
Sensemaking requires authentic, hands-on contexts, not just curated materials or abstract worksheets.
In many traditional labs, unexpected results are seen as failures. But in real science, unexpected outcomes are often the most valuable. They force us to question our methods, reconsider our assumptions, and revise our thinking. We should be designing experiences where students are encouraged to grapple with surprise, celebrate when their predictions don’t match reality, and see revision as a natural part of learning. This teaches resilience and gives students a more authentic understanding of how scientific knowledge actually develops.
Positioning Students as Experts
This past fall, a Trotter 6th grader posed a profound question to a mechanical engineering doctoral student who researches soft robotics. The student asked, “Can you program robots to have feelings?” Rather than offering a simple answer, the doctoral student turned the inquiry back to the students, asking them to consider what a feeling actually is and what it means for us as humans to experience emotions. The conversation evolved toward the challenge at the heart of affective computing: To program something as complex as emotion, we must first define it, measure it, and translate human experience into data and algorithms that machines can process.
This exchange exemplifies what it means to create space for real curiosity to thrive. A student’s question became the entry point for sensemaking, uncertainty wasn’t shut down but explored, and the struggle to understand something complex—how to translate human emotion into algorithms—became the real science worth doing.
During my time as the scientist-in-residence at the Charles H. Barrows STEM Academy in Connecticut, kindergartners connected with a local TV meteorologist who showed them his equipment and discussed how he uses scientific data to help communities. For those students, science became something that real people use to solve real problems—because real problems matter. That’s why project-based and inquiry-based learning works: Students sense that their thinking about those problems matters, too.
How do we create this environment consistently? It starts with positioning students as experts who actively participate in sensemaking, rather than passively receiving information. This might mean taking a student’s seemingly off-topic contribution seriously and asking them to say more about how they see the connection. It might mean creating groups where different students can be experts in different ways. One might excel at drawing scientific models, another at designing investigations, and another at analyzing patterns in data.
The Joyful Search for Sense
The students who discovered that huge mushroom were doing exactly what we want all students to do in science class: Investigate the world through observation, testing, and pattern-finding. Our job isn’t to replace that innate curiosity with textbook knowledge. It’s to channel it, deepen it, and help students develop increasingly sophisticated ways to make sense of the phenomena around them. When we succeed, we create classrooms full of students who think like scientists. In an uncertain future where AI can answer questions but cannot generate curiosity, that capacity to wonder and figure things out might be the most valuable thing we can offer.
One of my favorite Latin phrases comes from Virgil: Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. Happy are those who have understood the causes of things. That joy comes from wrestling with genuine puzzles, from those hard-won “aha” moments when the pieces click into place. Our job is to kindle that fire of curiosity within students. That’s how we develop lifelong learners.
Ten Ways to Value Wonder
Creating classrooms where curiosity thrives requires intentional shifts in how we frame learning experiences and interact with student thinking. It requires moving from teacher-centered instruction to student-centered exploration, from providing answers upfront to facilitating investigations where students develop questions, gather evidence, and construct explanations over time. Here are 10 ways you can foster a healthy sense of curiosity in your classroom.
Start with phenomena, not explanations. Begin units with something students can observe that puzzles them: a surprising video, a hands-on demonstration, a local problem (NGSS Lead States, 2013). Give them space to wonder before you start teaching.
Ask, “What does this remind you of?” After students share initial observations, prompt them to connect to their own experiences (Reiser et al., 2017). This elevates questions and validates diverse backgrounds as sources of expertise.
Use guided questions instead of direct answers. When students ask questions, resist the urge to immediately explain. Ask follow-up questions that help them think through their own reasoning: “What makes you think that?” “What evidence would help you figure that out?”
Create investigation boards where students collect evidence over time. Make thinking visible by dedicating wall space where students can post observations, questions, and evolving explanations. This shows that understanding develops gradually, not all at once.
Celebrate unexpected results. When investigations don’t go as planned, treat it as an opportunity. As Hammond (2025) reminds us, embracing mistakes and false starts is essential for curiosity to translate into real learning progress. Ask students, “What does this tell us?” “How might we revise our thinking?” “What new questions does this raise?”
Design labs that mirror authentic scientific practice. Move away from cookbook procedures toward open-ended investigations (National Research Council, 2012). Present problems to solve rather than steps to follow. Value the process of investigation as much as the outcome.
Carve out time for students to share and critique ideas. Establish norms for scientific discourse where students can respectfully challenge one another’s reasoning, ask for evidence, and build on one another’s thinking.
Connect to real scientists and real-world applications. Invite community members who use science in their work. Show students that the skills they’re developing have purpose beyond the classroom.
Honor students as experts. Structure collaborative work so that different students can contribute different strengths. Recognize that expertise comes in many forms; it can involve asking good questions, making connections, drawing clear models, or noticing patterns.
Make revision a normal part of learning. Model how scientists revise their thinking when they encounter new evidence. Keep early models or explanations visible so students can see how their understanding has evolved.
Reflect & Discuss
Think about a recent lesson where students followed predetermined steps to reach a known outcome. How might you redesign it to center genuine puzzles or surprises that invite authentic sensemaking?
Which of McKenna’s 10 ways to value wonder feels most doable to try this week? What’s one small step you could take to implement it?
