5 Ways to Cultivate Deep Curiosity in Science Class

One of the most common questions among kindergarten and first-grade students is “why?” In a seemingly endless loop, they interrogate the adults nearby: “Why do we take turns?” “Why is the sky blue?” “Why are giraffes tall?” 

Young children are born scientists, writes author and scientist Ainissa Ramirez. Brimming with curiosity and wonder, their minds are hard at work, rapidly creating new neural pathways as they seek to understand and make sense of the world around them. 

As they get older, “that curious nature fades, and those ‘why’ questions grow silent,” Ramirez says. In the middle and high school years, as instruction often shifts away from discovery toward content acquisition and mastery, classrooms that were once vibrant hubs for play and inquiry steadily transition toward more abstract and cognitively demanding work. In response, even the most naturally inquisitive students may begin to tamp down their impulse to explore and question.

But science classrooms in particular, which in the middle and upper grades can lean heavily on “individual work, note-taking, and getting the ‘right answer,’” writes Kristen Barnes, assistant director of the Upward Bound Math and Science program at Tougaloo College, offer rich opportunities for older students to step back into the role of active explorers. Planning activities that activate curiosity—paired with cognitive strategies that help them reason and think like scientists—moves students away from “passively listening to information” and “memorizing scientific facts” toward complex reasoning and deeper engagement, argues Barnes. 

Rigorous learning and eliciting wonder aren’t in opposition, yet there are misconceptions around curiosity that sometimes keep educators from intentionally designing for it, writes Kasey Short, a middle school director of studies. “There’s a notion that [curiosity] requires an intense amount of planning, entertainment, and showmanship; it’s only for younger students; or, in order to inspire curiosity, academic learning and rigor are lost,” Short says. But curiosity is less about the topic and more about “how students experience learning,” and teachers can design for curiosity. When kids get opportunities to “wonder, grapple with ideas, construct understanding, and continue asking questions, their curiosity is piqued, engagement increases, and learning deepens,” notes Short.

Here are five ways to inject curiosity into middle and high school science classes, while keeping critical thinking and scientific reasoning at the center of the learning process. 

Pique Interest Immediately: The first few minutes of class are prime real estate, but rather than immediately launching into the lesson, consider starting with a puzzling phenomenon, a mind-bending fact, or an open-ended scenario that instantly gets students asking questions. “Display a close-up image of an animal with a strange feature,” suggests educational consultant Cheryl Alba. Provide a moment of think time for students to process independently before they discuss with an elbow partner. “Then make the connection clear and tie it to something you will be teaching or have taught from the previous day,” Alba says. 

Frontload Questions: At the beginning of each new unit, science teacher Chris Reid gives students three to five minutes to “generate as many questions as possible about our new unit’s topic.” He collects and reviews the questions then finds ways to weave them into his lesson, referencing specific ones as the class progresses through the unit together, continuously hooking his students into the learning. “Students looked forward to having their questions answered, and they would even raise their hand to share that they were the one who had asked the question,” he says. 

To ensure each question gets addressed—even if it doesn’t fit naturally into the unit—Reid saves some time during the unit’s final lesson for “a sweep of all the leftover questions.”

Practice Your Poker Face: Students’ search for answers can send them looking for clues just about anywhere—including the teacher’s face. But when students “can’t read [from a teacher’s expression] whether their idea is ‘correct,’ they stay engaged in reasoning,” writes TJ McKenna, director of the Center for STEM Professional Learning at Boston University. “They look to evidence and peer discussion rather than teacher validation.”

It takes practice, McKenna says, but neutral teacher responses to student observations can encourage students to wrestle with each other’s ideas and keep the conversation anchored in open inquiry. “During investigations, when a student shares an observation, I respond with genuine curiosity: ‘Interesting! What makes you think that?’” he explains. “This keeps other students engaged and encourages them to share their reasoning.” Alternatively, phrases like “What do others think?” open the floor up to additional perspectives.

Sketch Toward Wonder: While some students may maintain a sense of curiosity in the upper grades, others will benefit from opportunities to reengage. Nature journals and observation notebooks create a dedicated low-stakes space where students can safely lean into what they find intriguing about the world around them—no art skills necessary. Nature journaling doesn’t require much more than a pen or pencil, paper, and an open mind, writes Polly Diffenbaugh, senior clinical associate in science education with the Stanford Teacher Education Program. 

Diffenbaugh acknowledges that taking students outside isn’t always possible, but students also benefit from sketching plants and other artifacts inside the classroom. With time, the habits of mind built during nature journaling impact classroom learning—students looking more closely at in-class experiments, developing hypotheses, and asking questions driven by what they wonder and a genuine sense of curiosity. 

Invite Experts In: Inviting practicing scientists and experts into your classroom—whether in-person or through a screen—can spark curiosity while grounding learning that feels abstract in the real world. Sixth-grade science teacher Stephen Kos’s students have met “microbiologists, a geophysicist, a plant biologist, a biochemist, a glaciologist, a Space Force Guardian and two astronauts still up in space,” he writes. There’s simply something “electric about a guest appearance” for students, especially when a real expert validates their curiosity.

“Last year, a 6th-grade student who doesn’t often speak up asked a visiting microbiologist a question during a live Q&A,” Kos recalls. “This fall, that same student referenced the experience unprompted during a lunch club. A real scientist had taken their question seriously! A year later, they were still glowing.”