wunder beta🔎 Asking Scientific Questions
You already do the most important thing a scientist does: you wonder. A first course in asking good "how" and "why" questions — and in the four everyday doors you can knock on to find an answer: look, try, read, ask.
What you’ll learn
- You Are Already a ScientistUnderstand that a scientist is anyone who wonders about the world and then tries to find out, and that "how" and "why" are the words that start the process.Being a scientist means being curious and going after the answer, not wearing a lab coat. The words how and why open the door to exploring the world, and children already use them without being taught. The word "scientist" itself only dates from 1834.
- Questions Big and SmallTell the difference between a question with a findable answer and one that is only a matter of personal taste, and learn that different questions are answered in different ways.Good science questions make us curious and can be answered by finding out about the real world, giving the same answer for everyone. Opinion questions, like favourite flavours, differ from person to person. Answers can be looked for in more than one way, and this course uses four everyday ones.
- Door One: Look CloselyUse careful observation, with all the senses and for longer than feels natural, to answer questions about how things are right now.Observing means looking, listening, smelling and touching carefully enough to notice what most people walk past: a snail’s four tentacles, the faint second bow of a double rainbow, the grain of tree bark. It is the best door for questions about how something is at this moment.
- Door Two: Try It OutAnswer a question by predicting first, then running a simple fair test that changes only one thing at a time.An experiment is a careful try that answers questions you cannot settle by looking. Saying your prediction out loud first gives you something to be right or wrong about. Keeping everything the same except one thing makes the test fair, so you know what caused the result.
- Doors Three and Four: Read, and AskChoose reading, or asking someone who knows, when a question cannot be observed or tested directly, and understand that asking borrows an answer somebody else earned.Questions about the past or about faraway things are best answered by reading what others have already worked out; questions needing special knowledge are best answered by asking an expert. Asking is not a separate way of knowing, because the expert had to look, try or read first.
- Choosing the Right DoorMatch a question to the way of answering it that fits best, and see that every answer leads on to new questions, including corrections to answers already written down.The skill of enquiry is picking the right approach — look, try, read or ask — for each question. Finding an answer usually sparks a new one, and even settled answers get revised when somebody measures again, as happened with SUE the Tyrannosaurus.
Questions this course answers
What does it actually mean to be a scientist?
A scientist is simply somebody who is curious about the world and then looks for the answer, which is something children already do without being taught. The white coat is optional. The wondering is not.
When was the word "scientist" invented?
William Whewell used it in print in the Quarterly Review in March 1834, reviewing On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences by Mary Somerville, partly because "man of science" did not fit her. Before that, people who studied nature were called natural philosophers.
What is the difference between a science question and an opinion question?
How many legs a spider has can be counted, and everyone gets eight. Whether chocolate is nicer than strawberry has your answer and nobody else’s. Both are fine questions, but only the first is one that science can settle.
How many tentacles does a garden snail have, and where are its eyes?
A garden snail has two pairs of tentacles. The long upper pair carry the eyes at their tips, which is why they sway about as the snail moves; the short lower pair are used for smelling and for feeling the ground ahead.
Why should an experiment change only one thing at a time?
If you change one thing and keep everything else the same, then whatever happens must have been caused by that one thing. Scientists call this a fair test, and it is the reason anybody believes the answer afterwards.
Why can you not answer "When did dinosaurs live?" by looking or by testing?
You can go and look at a dinosaur’s bones in a museum, but the bones do not tell you when the animal was alive. People worked that out and wrote it down, so reading is the door that fits this question.
Grounded in trusted sources
- https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-science-programmes-of-study/national-curriculum-in-england-science-programmes-of-study
- https://pstt.org.uk/resources/enquiry-approaches/
- https://idtools.org/mollusk/index.cfm?pageID=2975
- https://weather.metoffice.gov.uk/learn-about/weather/optical-effects/rainbows
- https://www.fieldmuseum.org/blog/sue-t-rex
- https://www.fieldmuseum.org/blog/fresh-science-makeover-sue
- https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/sciencecomma/2015/04/09/whewell-and-the-coining-of-scientist-in-the-quarterly-review/
Every Wunder lesson is built from real, reputable sources — never invented.
Related Science courses
Wunder is a personalized learn-anything platform — tell it any topic and it builds a beautiful, fact-checked course in minutes, with narration, a knowledge check, and a college-style University track.
Browse more Science courses · All topics · Home
© 2026 Wunder Learning LLC · Terms & Privacy