UE2: We leave with more questions than answers

Last year, I-RISE scholars observing UE2 were struck by the number of seemingly 'aha' moments related to the nature of science and the teachers' identities as participants in the scientific community.  One thing that was flagged -- described in this post -- was the sophistication of the idea that science learning often concludes with more questions than answers.

This year, my ears perk up every time I hear something like that, and it's come up twice with not much additional attention.  Two instances come to mind in particular:

1. During the "Rights and Responsibilities" discussion, there was a lot of talk about teachers having a "right" to leave with correct answers.  Tim responded with something like, "My sense is that these kinds of classes leave us with more questions than answers."  And I got the feeling that this is okay -- even welcome -- to him, as though he wouldn't want to interfere with that by making a rule that they have to leave with all of the answers.
   
2. Yesterday (06/27) afternoon, the teachers were discussing an experiment that Eleanor did using three temperature probes: one that was placed in a cup of hot water and two that were placed in the air outside, one three inches away and the other six inches away.  She graphed the temperature over time, and there were lots of bumps in the graphs if you zoomed in close enough.  The teachers were asking lots of questions about what might have made the bumps happen, and one teacher suggested that maybe the bumps were because of air currents.  Sherry piped up to say that the bumps in the graph for the temperature probe in the water could not have been because of air currents, because the probe was in the water.  They are wondering about this, and Sherry points out that one question always leads to many more.  Eleanor agrees that "that's the way it always is."

These are sort of isolated moments in time -- no sustained discussion around them -- but I wanted to make note.