Where Do Good Questions Come From?

Go back in history - six thousand years, to any ancient civilization - say, Mesopotamia, which in today's geography, is parts of Iraq, Kuwait, Turkey and Syria ('meso' means between and 'potamus' means river - this is the Fertile Crescent between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers). Stand by a hut or make yourself comfortable by squatting on the ground to observe our very ancient ancestors. You're invisible and thus safe from suspicions, threats, and attacks. You've packed yourself a nice picnic, so you have sandwiches, fruit, nuts, and chocolate to nibble on and apple cider to drink while you watch.

Cultivation of barley and wheat is ongoing. Beer, soup, and bread are common. Plows are in use on the fields. Horses have been domesticated, also chickens. The potters wheel is in full form and pottery is used to store food and drink harvested from the fields. Where men had previously wandered about the land like nomads, now they live in a house in a village.

Dara, Mesopotamia

There is no writing yet. It won't be discovered for at least 500 - 1500 more years. So, all they have is each other for company and entertainment. When night comes, they sit down near a fire for warmth and protection from predators (fire was known to man 2 million years go, but it has been in proper, controlled use from about 125,000 years ago... again, give or take).

The sky glitters with stars like diamonds in velvet. The moon rises. It's full and stunning, given how little pollution and light there is. Everyone points and wonders. No one knows what it is, why it glows, why it wanes, why it disappears during the day, why a bigger and hot ball of fire emerges hours later. No one knows why it rains, why lightning strikes, why trees grow or why fruits hang from them, why a cut bleeds, and why tripping over a rock hurts.

As you sit with the group, eating strips of meat and gruel and drinking beer, you hear them in conversation - for you can follow their words. Say, a thinking human is sitting next to you. He tells everyone the moon is high in the sky everyday, but one of these days it's going to fall on them, then it's going to be a disaster. Someone else might object and say, no - only if it were to rain heavily while the moon was in the sky, would the moon fall, and not otherwise, but as the moon was never in the sky when it rained heavily (they couldn't see the moon during the recent heavy rains, could they?) the moon wouldn't fall.

Here, you have the beginnings of astronomy - a question regarding the moon, which would in due course, lead to questions regarding the sun, stars, planets, orbits, meteors, light, etc.

It would take another several thousand years before Anaxagorus, a Greek philosopher, who lived about 500 years BC, brought a spirit of enquiry to these questions. He predicted that if celestial bodies were loosened by a slip or shake, they might be torn away, and fall to Earth.

He was also the first to state that the Moon shines by the reflected light of the Sun.

It would be many more years before humans would figure out the Moon was spinning on its axis at the same speed it's going around the Earth (27.32 Earth Days), which was why we see the same face of the Moon, that a person weighing 200 pounds on Earth would weigh about 32 pounds on the Moon, and the Moon's mass is around 1% of Earth, and the Moon formed because a Mars-sized body crashed into Earth about 4.5 billion years ago.

Science, one way or the other, arises from questions when observing nature, then and now. I think nature should be the starting point for all education. It already IS, but we forget. There are a million questions still to be asked and answered and most of them are found in nature. Here's a selection of how nature triggered thoughts in some nice folks in recent centuries:

1. Newton (why do things fall down?)

2. Einstein (what would happen if I rode on a light beam?)

3. Libby (how to estimate age of ancient bones - radiocarbon dating)

4. Darwin (why do different finches have different kinds of beaks?)

5. Watt (if steam can push so hard against the lid, what can it do elsewhere?)

6. Dalton (what is matter made of - tiny, exceeding small particles, that is atoms?)

7. Mendel (can I cross-breed 30,000 pea plants to understand patterns of inheritance?)

8. Wilson (cloud forms to building cloud chambers to helping create a particle detector)

When children do the basics of science - observe, think, and ask questions, they are showing their natural curiosity and intellect. What happens after they pose the questions, builds their character. From observations, come questions. From questions arise investigations that lead to knowledge, more questions, more curiosity, a sense of wonder, humility, and awe.

But that is not all that the kids receive.

The explorations in nature give children a sense of belonging in the world, a feeling of being enriched by it, rejuvenated by it. As they spend time in this world, they want to take care of it, because they have grown to love it.

Plitvice Lakes, Croatia - UNESCO

Want kids to love science, be curious and be happy?

Let them find their question in nature.

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