Sparking Students’ Curiosity: Embedding Strategies to Promote Curiosity Alongside Teaching Static Electricity

Abstract

In this article, we use the strategies to engage students in a 5E lesson on static electricity (partially addressing MS-PS2-3). We start the engage phase by using a “magic trick” as a hook to engage students about static electricity. During the explain phase, students get the chance to interact with a variety of static electricity phenomena and write down what they are curious about. Next, we help students make sense of the experiences through teacher questioning in the explore phase. In the elaborate phase, we encourage student speculation and questions by having them generate their own research questions. In the evaluate phase, we use novel scenarios related to what students learned to assess their thinking and maintain curiosity. Throughout all of the 5E, we strive to model curiosity by looking excited, asking speculative questions, and being interested in students’ ideas.

Keywords:

• Electricity
• Static electricity
• Curiosity

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jesse Wilcox

Jesse Wilcox ([email protected]) is an assistant professor of biology and science education at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls. Stephanie Zavalza Flores is an undergraduate student in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls. Mackenzie Bruns is a teacher at Cactus View Elementary School in Phoenix, Arizona. Sarah Nolting Dredge is a first-grade teacher at Emerson Elementary School in Indianola, Iowa.