A common theme connecting many of these Education Matters columns is that of learners experiencing, investigating, and making evidence-based explanations of natural phenomena. For the most part they are following the footsteps of all the scientists and learners who came before them, redefining for themselves the models used to explain the natural world. What was it like for those early humans who had no previous guide for their explanations? How did they know how to respond to the world they were intimately a part of? Their attempts to create meaning formed the basis for the myths, which eventually became the religions, which eventually gave rise to the sciences we now use to explore that same world. Early humans’ awe resulting from their interactions and observations of nature provoked a response, which, lacking a scientific methodology, took the form of art and other subjective and emotional expression.

Educational practices reenact these initial wonderments through the use of experiences designed to elicit questioning, which leads to exploring and meaning-making. So we introduce provocations, discrepant events, anticipatory sets, anchoring phenomena, all in an effort to prepare students for deep engagement with natural phenomena. Then we take them down the road of science, where objective facts hold sway, setting aside the subjective experience that elicited a response in the first place, requiring students to demonstrate proficiency in reciting facts and creating models to assess their progress.