Over the years we have developed a program that allows students to be alright without getting an answer right away. Nature itself is our biggest tool to teach the skills that allow students to learn about patience, curiosity and empowerment. We have a few "core routines" that we do weekly with students that we think bridges this gap. One of the most effective tools we use is one of our core routines called "Sit Spots". We guide them to find a place in nature (on our organizations property) where they can just sit and 'be'. It becomes personal to each individual because it is their spot and they notice the changes in phenology because their scope becomes smaller. We sit for 15 minutes in silence and then we convene to talk about what we saw. In the 15 minutes of sitting in one spot they can tell me more details about what they witnessed then they could about the rest of the 7 hours with us for the day. It's all about getting to know one biome, one community of soils and plants, the animals that call it home and so on really well. The sit spot becomes the home base from exploration outwards. The students are always excited to visit again and see what has changed or if things have shifted.

I utilize open ended questions to encourage curiosity, as well expanding upon the questions they are already asking, much like the monarch example above. Like anything, practicing and modeling these questions inspire students to ask similar ones. The more students hear questions and observations like these, the more likely they are to follow along.

I have used the animal tracks Power Point slides that show tracks moving toward each other in the first slide, and they are different sized animal tracks.  In the next slide, the tracks are mixed up in one area.  The next slide shows just one set of tracks, (the larger ones), moving away from the area.  After viewing each slide, I ask the students to think about what they observed and come up with some inferences about what is going on.  Then, I ask them to share their inferences with the class.  We look at the next slide, and follow the same procedure. After we have seen all the slides and listened to all of the observations and inferences, we discuss the plausibility of each inference.  The class talks about how they could find out what really happened through data collection and experimentation such as soil samples, knowing the date each image was taken, and understanding the species of animal whose tracks we were viewing.