i wonder… | Issue 16

How can we help students make sense of everyday observations to build a deeper scientific understanding of light? In ​‘Thinking about light: Using a drawing-based assessment’, the author shows how inviting students to draw light paths can reveal hidden assumptions and strengthen scientific thinking. In ​‘Thinking about light: Using a sequence of connected investigations’, the author shows how prompting students to connect ideas across investigations helps them bridge gaps between observation and explanation to build a coherent conceptual framework. Together, these articles show how classroom instruction can encourage students to use their own observations to construct, compare, and refine explanations of how light behaves.