The Science of Curiosity: Why ‘Observe & Wonder’ Is a Must-Have Thinking Routine for your Classroom

 

Have you ever had one of those moments when curiosity takes over your classroom? A small discovery, the first snowfall, or an unexpected delivery can spark an avalanche of questions drawing students into an inquiry that you couldn’t have planned better yourself! Let me tell you about one of those moments in my classroom.

It was a regular afternoon in late November. Students were busily working when a shriek erupted from the back of the room. “There’s something crawling out of the sink!” a student shouted in panic. I rushed over, wary of what I would find. All eyes were on me as a chorus of voices asked, “What is it?” Upon closer inspection it wasn’t an insect or a reptile, thank goodness, but a plant! As I gently pulled it from the drain we could see 2 small leaves, a long stem that had bent to take the shape of the drainpipe and the shell of a single seed clinging to its roots.

My students were captivated. We gathered together by the windows to take a closer look. One of my students zoomed in on the seed and said, “Wait … that looks like a pumpkin seed!” Another student added, “Could that be from the pumpkin we carved for Halloween?” Students were excited as they recalled memories from Halloween and wondered, “How long has the seed been in there? Can we count backwards on the calendar? How was it able to grow in the drainpipe? What’s that black stuff attached to the roots?”

This is what Observe & Wonder is all about – looking closely, looking longer, sparking questions, drawing on prior knowledge and including students’ natural wonderings in the learning. Moments like these are golden – students naturally dive into what is happening in front of them. And now, my own curiosity has led me to reflect and revisit research that supports the importance of developing Observe & Wonder skills. 

Should we intentionally foster these opportunities within the context of the curriculum too? Absolutely! The research shows that cultivating observation and curiosity leads to impactful learning across all disciplines. By regularly practicing skills like Observe & Wonder students learn to develop these habits until they become fast, automatic responses – what Kahneman (2011) calls “System 1 Thinking.” This automatic thinking helps students know what to do when they encounter a new scenario, even if they aren’t sure where to start. Let’s take a deep dive into the research that explains why developing Observe & Wonder skills into a Fail-Safe Thinking Routine in your classroom is not only worthwhile but essential!  

Piaget, Curiosity, and Constructivism: A Perfect Match

Piaget believed that children actively construct knowledge by interacting with their environment and using hands-on experiences to explore and make sense of the world. This promotes deeper learning as students assimilate new information (the mysterious plant) and adjust their existing knowledge (plant growth, memories of pumpkin carving) through inquiry and observation.

This natural, curiosity-driven learning is exactly what the Observe & Wonder Thinking Routine cultivates in a structured way. By encouraging students to look closely and ask questions, we guide them to construct knowledge on their own terms, just as Piaget envisioned.

John Hattie’s (2009) research further validates Piagetian programs showing they have a significant effect size of 1.28! This is one of the most highly impactful ways to foster student learning! By tapping into students’ natural curiosity and helping them explore their surroundings, Observe & Wonder as a Thinking Routine fits perfectly within this framework. It promotes inquiry-based learning and critical thinking, both essential components of Piaget’s philosophy and shown to be highly effective in Hattie’s findings.

The Brain is a Multimodal Processor

Dual Coding Theory (Paivio, 1986) and the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning (Mayer, 2022) explain that we learn better when we process information both verbally and visually. The experience of seeing something unexpected like the plant growing out of a sink drain, paired with our discussion about it, helped students process the experience more deeply by engaging multiple pathways in their brains. Our discussion comparing this real-life example of a plant growing in the sink with examples of other environments where plants grow helped students better process similarities and differences. By integrating words and images, students formed richer mental connections while adjusting their schema. 

Whether observing a science experiment, a natural phenomenon, or analyzing literature, using this dual mode of thinking supports deeper learning. In Multiple Pathways to the Student Brain (2014), Zadina explains that our brains process information through various pathways. In the case of the mysterious growing plant we engaged our sensory-motor and language and math pathways just to name a few! Encouraging students to look closely and wonder activates multiple pathways in the brain enhancing students’ ability to process and remember information.

The Role of Emotions and Reward Pathways in Learning

Emotions and rewards are powerful drivers of learning. When my students shouted, “What is it?” they were becoming emotionally invested in uncovering the mystery. I’ve often found that wonder, and the curiosity that follows, naturally develop when students engage more with their observations. This emotional engagement is central to the Observe & Wonder Thinking Routine.

Zadina (2014) emphasizes the importance of tapping into the brain’s emotional and reward pathways for learning. As students follow their curiosity, Zadina (2014) explains, their brains release dopamine – a “chemical reward” that strengthens habits like observing and wondering, motivating them to continue exploring.

Loewenstein’s Information Gap Theory (1994) also connects emotions and reward to learning. When students recognized the pumpkin seed but couldn’t explain how it had grown into a plant in the sink, they felt a sense of uncertainty. This ‘information gap’ triggered their curiosity, driving them to ask more questions and seek answers. Identifying and exploring these gaps, which emotionally invests students in the learning process, is central to the Observe & Wonder Thinking Routine and offers a cognitive reward.

Cognitive Research on Attention: Training the Brain to Focus 

Our fast-paced world makes it challenging for students to slow down and take a closer look at their surroundings; there is so much stimuli competing for their attention! Lately, research on attention has become a hot topic in education with teachers increasingly realizing it’s an area of growing need in their classrooms. For students to effectively Observe & Wonder, maintaining focus is key. Cognitive science reveals the foundational role of attention in learning, closely linking it to memory. Zadina’s work highlights the overlap between the sensory-motor and attention pathways, reinforcing the idea that what we pay attention to, we remember.  

The Information Processing Model (Chew, 2021; Badeley and Hitch 1974, 1999; Atkinson and Shiffrin 1968) explains how the human brain filters and processes information. Among all the competing stimuli students might focus on something interesting, novel, or even alarming like the unexpected plant growing in our classroom sink. This unexpected find sharpened my students’ focus allowing us to engage in deeper observation. We could now tap into Kahneman’s (2011) System 2 Thinking, that slow, careful and deliberate reflection that helps students generate thoughtful questions and explore information gaps. In hindsight, asking students to draw and label the plant in their notebooks as well as summarize our discussion about the conditions necessary for plant growth would have further reinforced their learning by engaging visual and verbal pathways through Dual Coding. 

Mindfulness research further supports the power of fully engaging our senses in the present moment. By practicing mindfulness, students enhance their ability to notice subtle details they might otherwise overlook. Mindfulness practices strengthen the brain’s attention and memory pathway (Zadina, 2014), creating deeper connections between what we observe and what we retain, again reinforcing the cognitive benefits of Observe & Wonder as a Thinking Routine.

Why This Matters

Observe & Wonder is a foundational skill set that spans the curriculum and underpins critical thinking skills like inference, analysis and application. Whether students are observing a plant, analyzing a text, or exploring a math pattern, Observe & Wonder skills drive inquiry, critical thinking, and deeper understanding. Backed by research like Dual Coding Theory, Information Gap Theory, Information Processing Theory and Mindfulness, Observe and Wonder as a Thinking Routine engages multiple pathways in the brain, helps sustain attention, and fosters natural curiosity, enabling students to gain and use knowledge effectively. 

Bringing Observe & Wonder to Your Classroom 

With all this research behind Observe & Wonder, let’s explore practical ways to bring it to our classrooms:

• • Observing the Unexpected: Invite students to examine an oddly shaped vegetable, fruit or damaged tree and wonder, using prior knowledge (i.e. wind, soil, human impact), about the conditions that caused this unexpected appearance.
  • Nature Walk Snapshot: During nature walks or on a field trip, have students draw or photograph something of interest to them. Back in the classroom, they can describe their objects and present them to peers or try to match descriptions to the corresponding photos in a collaborative activity to test the reliability of their observations.
  • Build a “Wonder Wall”: Create an “I Wonder” wall for students to post observation-based questions from any subject – science, geography, math or art. Use this wall as a springboard for collaborative explorations. 
  • Curiosity Carousel: Set up stations with different objects, pictures, or even video clips related to a topic or concept you will be introducing. At each station students can jot down wonderings based on observations they make, building a bank of curiosity-driven questions for the upcoming unit of study.
  • Information Gap Spotlight: Use KWL charts and Anticipation Guides to help students identify knowledge gaps. Support them with time and opportunity to find answers and fill these gaps.
  • Visual Observation Slow Down: Have students sketch or describe changes to an object or scene (in nature, literature, or science) over time. This practice helps slow down their thinking, focus their attention and catch smaller details.
  • Sense-Based Observation Activities: Incorporate multi-sensory observation activities. Ask students to use touch, sound, or smell in addition to sight. This can lead to richer observations and questions.

• Fail-Safe 5 Activities: Use our “Fail-Safe 5” slide decks! Each slide deck offers a week’s worth of 5 minute activities based on a visual prompt that has students thinking in science, literacy and across the curriculum. Each slide deck includes key background knowledge and a spotlight on vocabulary. 

Why not try it out in your classroom? Start with an observation activity from above, a Fail-Safe 5 activity from our website or an Observe & Wonder activity and strategy from our book, Fail-safe Strategies for Science and Literacy. Watch as your students’ curiosity deepens, guiding them to more meaningful learning. WIth time, the Observe & Wonder Thinking Routine will become second nature – an automatic response to any new challenge or question. And they’ll also know to slow down, focus and look more closely of course 😉!

References

Atkinson, R. C., & Shiffrin, R. M. (1968). Human memory: A proposed system and its control processes. In K. W. Spence & J. T. Spence, The psychology of learning and motivation: II. Academic Press.

Baddeley, A. D., & Hitch, G. (1974). Working Memory. Psychology of Learning and Motivation, v8: 47-89.

Chew, S. L. (2021, June 17). An Advance Organizer for Student Learning: Choke Points and Pitfalls in Studying. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie canadienne. 

Hattie, J. (2009). Visible Learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement, New York, NY: Routledge.

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Mayer, R. E., & Fiorella, L. (2022). The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning. Cambridge University Press.

Paivio, A. (1986). Mental Representations. New York: Oxford University Press.

Zadina, J. N. (2014). Multiple Pathways to the Student Brain. Jossey-Bass/Wiley.