Passing the Ball: What Malaguzzi Taught Me About Science Inquiry
6/23/25
Loris Malaguzzi, the visionary behind the Reggio Emilia approach, once said that education should be like “passing the ball” back and forth between children and teachers. It’s not a one-way game where the teacher holds all the answers. Instead, it’s a shared exchange of ideas, questions, and discoveries, where students’ curiosity sets the rhythm, and teachers respond with intentional support.
This philosophy resonates deeply with how I see science inquiry. Too often, science gets reduced to checklists of state standards or tightly scripted curriculum maps. But when we teach science this way, we risk turning an exciting, hands-on subject into a dull series of tasks. True inquiry (the kind that makes students’ eyes light up) comes from following their wonder, not from marching through a textbook.
I’ve seen this magic happen in my own classroom.
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My students once became obsessed with creating the longest and most creative domino tumbles. What began as play quickly turned into experimentation with angles, spacing, and chain reactions, a natural deep dive into force and motion.
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They were equally fascinated by color mixing. We spent an afternoon layering transparent colored sheets on the window to see what new colors appeared as the sun shone through.
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Then came the food coloring experiments, where droplets of color swirled like tiny galaxies in water. That exploration flowed into tempera paint experiments in egg cartons, mixing shades until every child proudly showed off their “new colors no one has ever seen before.”
None of these moments were in the curriculum guide, but each one met (and exceeded) the standards. We didn’t just “cover” force and motion or color properties; the students lived them. For me, standards are a compass, not a cage. They guide our direction, but the children’s questions and ideas shape the journey.
Science, at its core, is about curiosity. It’s about noticing, questioning, experimenting, and making sense of the world. When we center our teaching on student-driven inquiry, we’re not just meeting standards, we’re igniting a lifelong love of learning. And that, I believe, is exactly what Malaguzzi meant when he passed the ball to us.