Introduction

Wonder and curiosity are among the ordinary phenomena we talk about in everyday life, but which seem to become harder to understand the more we study them. While our everyday definitions struggle to separate curiosity, exploration, interest or motivation as well as philosophising and wonder, the more psychologically or philosophically grounded definitions may seem too advanced for everyday use (Jirout et al., 2024). The many facets and overlapping dimensions of wonder and curiosity may weaken our understanding of them, and like other seemingly simple concepts, wonder and curiosity may hold different meanings to each of us (Heggen and Lynngård, 2021).

While curiosity can be understood as the wanting of new information, to wonder can be seen as to ponder upon information. Different situations will lead to various reactions in us: If we are shown the contrast between one specific snail and other species that are familiar to us, we may become curious about which snail this is. On the other hand, if someone points out that a regular garden snail comes out of its shell when you whistle in the right way, this may lead you to wonder how it is to be a snail. In the same way, different people will react differently; we all know people that are more prone to curiosity or wondering than others.

The relationship between wonder and curiosity is, however, unclear and while curiosity has been seen as part of wonder (e.g. Glăveanu, 2020), wonder has also been seen as a part of curiosity (e.g. Jirout et al., 2024). Others are concerned with the differences between the two phenomena (e.g. Hadzigeorgiou, 2020).

Although wonder and curiosity are tightly linked phenomena, research primarily seems to have followed along two divergent lines. While research on wonder is often based in philosophy, as seen in Hove (1996), Piersol (2014) and Schinkel et al. (2023), research on curiosity is often based in psychology, as reviewed by Jirout and Klahr (2012), Grossnickle (2016) and Jirout et al. (2024). These different research traditions supplement each other, and a comprehensive understanding of wonder and curiosity depends on views from these different angles (Bazhydai and Westerman, 2020). To reveal the connections between, and the nuances of, wonder and curiosity, we compile information from these differing traditions.

Independent of research traditions, research on wonder and curiosity has often focused on traceable signs of wonder and curiosity. Although it is accepted that small children may wonder before they develop a language (Glăveanu, 2020), wonder is often investigated in school-aged children through a focus on verbal aspects (Egan, 2013). A lot of the research on curiosity is similarly based on questionnaires or interviews (Bazhydai and Westerman, 2020; Jirout et al., 2024). In an effort to keep a controlled environment, curiosity is also often measured through biophysical observations of bodily aspects, such as their gaze (see e.g. Altmann et al., 2025). These measurements are, in their very nature, measures of how wonder and curiosity are expressed. We argue, however, that we need to move beyond the realms of observable facets, investigated through psychological indicators. Implementing a phenomenological approach opens possibilities to observe and reflect on how wonder and curiosity can be experienced in natural contexts.

In an earlier work, we found an understanding among teacher educators that curiosity is expressed through bodily language and active explorative behaviour, and to a lesser degree by verbal questioning (Heggen and Lynngård, 2021). The terms bodily wonder and bodily curiosity were used to describe the wonder and curiosity that are not linked to verbalised thinking or verbal expressions (Heggen and Lynngård, 2021). Including bodily aspects opens up for new and different understandings of how wonder and curiosity may be understood, felt and recognised. In their review, Jirout et al. (2024) underline that future research should focus on what curiosity looks like, as well as how it can be recognised and promoted. We illustrate how wonder and curiosity can be understood beyond a verbal understanding, and that this becomes apparent in different ways, often in ways that are not already adequately appreciated.

Philosophical studies on wonder rarely focus on the phenomenological sides of wonder, even though it is accepted that phenomenology can help clarify the nuances of wonder and curiosity (Schinkel, 2021). The aim of the present study is to explore how wonder and curiosity can be understood in relation to each other and how they may be perceived and expressed both verbally and bodily. Merleau-Ponty (2012) argues in Phenomenology of Perception that human development is both cognitive and bodily at the same time. Using his phenomenological glasses give us the opportunity to explore how wonder and curiosity may be understood both verbally and bodily in a dynamic model. We explore this model in light of short stories that show how these aspects may look like in both small children and adults. We further discuss what the implications of this new way to understand wonder and curiosity might be. We hence suggest a more systematic way to understand the dynamic relationship between wonder and curiosity and how these may be understood as both verbal and bodily. This would entail new ways to perceive wonder and curiosity, new ways to discover, recognise and understand them.

Our methodological entrance to new perceptions

In this article, we explore wonder and curiosity as phenomena that can be recognised and valued in their various aspects. We do not attempt to define curiosity or wonder or to compartmentalise our understanding of these phenomena. Rather, we attempt to open up discussions of these phenomena beyond how they are often perceived in society and education.

We understand wonder and curiosity as phenomena which we live, experience and express in different ways, and where bodily experiences and expressions are important. Therefore, we ground our approach in Merleau-Ponty’s (2012) Phenomenology of Perception. His argument is that our perception of the world occurs through the body and that you cannot separate cognitive experiences as thought and speech, from bodily experiences. Furthermore, he underlines that you cannot give a complete linguistic description of a phenomenon (Merleau-Ponty, 2012). This implies that wonder and curiosity must be understood by how they are characterised in bodily experiences and sensations, in addition to what we are able to describe in words.

The phenomena of wonder and curiosity in this paper are presented in three steps. First, we anchor this study in phenomenology, and with Merleau-Ponty’s understanding of the body, bodily impressions and language as being tightly linked. In phenomenology, descriptions and interpretations of phenomena are considered to be influenced by preconceptions and earlier experiences. In this study, our interpretations are influenced by our professional experiences as well as philosophical perspectives and previous research. Therefore, we start this study with a summary of strategically selected literature on wonder and curiosity to display the theoretical implications which form the basis of our perceptions.

Secondly, we develop a model which explores how wonder and curiosity are experienced. In this model, we suggest a new way to understand wonder and curiosity as phenomena, understood as both verbal and embodied. This model also suggests ways that wonder and curiosity may be expressed.

The present paper is not an empirical study. However, in our third step, we elaborate on the theoretical model by including short descriptions of real-life experiences of wonder and curiosity. These stories represent experiences with the wonder and curiosity of children and preservice teachers we have met in our research and as teacher educators. In line with Merleau-Ponty (2012), we consider linguistic and bodily acts such as body language, feelings, moods and other non-verbal communication to reveal the phenomena’s expressions. When we include the stories of real-life experiences, we open up for these bodily perspectives. Our examples are from experiences in and with nature, as we specialise in natural science and nature experiences in our practices. Through these stories, we investigate what the rather theoretical aspects of the model may look like in real life. The stories point to new ways to discover, perceive, understand and recognise wonder and curiosity.

We end this study by asking one last curiosity-driven question of this paper: If we are within the frames of theoretical development and educational practices, what might then be the possibilities of this new, expanded and dynamic understanding of wonder and curiosity?

Philosophical perspectives and previous research

Both wonder and curiosity are seen as intrinsic aspects of being human and, even more often, of being a child. This has resulted in a long history of research on these terms. In line with the phenomenological inspiration, this paper is based on a transdisciplinary review of the literature that we find central in relation to experiences and expressions of wonder and curiosity.

Our most important sources of inspiration and knowledge of wonder are Anders Schinkel, Yannis Hadzigeorgiou, Philo Hove, and Laura Piersol. Our understanding of curiosity is clearly influenced by Daniel E. Berlyne, George Loewenstein, Todd B. Kashdan and by the reviews of Jamie Jirout and colleagues. As educational researchers, we are interested in how wonder and curiosity change over a lifetime and their role in education. In this, we initially learned from, and were inspired by, Marcus Lindholm, Paul Martin Opdal and Soern Menning. In different ways, these researchers point to experiences or expressions of wonder and curiosity and have helped us to consider the similarities and differences of wonder and curiosity.

Wonder

According to Plato (in Theaetetus), Socrates claims that ‘philosophy begins in wonder’ and describes wonder as the feeling of a philosopher, and Plato argues that we start to wonder when we dismantle our familiar preconceptions (Piersol, 2014). Another way to understand this is that wonder appears when we have reached the limits of our understanding (Opdal, 2001). Through wonder, we may establish new relations with the world and see our environment in a new way (Bazhydai and Westerman, 2020). In this way, wonder paves the way for an openness to novel experiences (Schinkel, 2017). Schinkel (2020) further describes wonder as a mode of consciousness, and Hadzigeorgiou (2020) underlines that we need awareness in order to wonder. Wonder contributes to a desire to investigate and may play an important part in the development of creativity and critical sense-making (Matthews, 1997; Opdal, 2001; Van Perlo and Wolbert, 2020). It is spontaneous and originates from perplexity or bewilderment (Van Perlo and Wolbert, 2020). Wonder, therefore, includes a humble realisation of how little we know, particularly compared to how much there might be to know and understand in our universe and beyond. Although Van Perlo and Wolbert (2020) argue that wonder cannot be summoned, we may pave the way for wonder by providing rich environments and experiences (Bianchi, 2014; Heggen and Lynngård, 2021) and through collaborative exploration (Ødegaard, 2021; Bjerknes et al., 2023).

Wonder is a complex phenomenon, and the literature focus on different aspects of this complexity and emphasise or nuance them in different ways. Since Goodwin (2001), one of the most common starting points to distinguish these features is to separate between wondering at and wondering about. As wondering about is to strive towards finding explanations, close to curiosity (e.g. Glăveanu, 2020), wondering at is closer to awe, or deep wonder (Schinkel, 2017). Glăveanu (2020) emphasises that both wondering at and about must be present in the experience of wonder.

‘Wonder suspends our habitual views of things, revealing them in a ‘new light’, and as a consequence, propels us into, and establishes anew, our relations with the world/other.’ (Hove, 1996, p. 437). With this description of existential wonder, Hove also describes a possible result of the deeper aspects found in wondering at. Wondering at has, among other things, been described as passive (Hadzigeorgiou, 2014; Goodwin, 2001), deep (Schinkel, 2017) and contemplative (Schinkel, 2021). In his work, Schinkel (2017) understands deep wonder as related to awe and a fundamental, irresolvable ‘not-knowing’, a form of contemplative wonder (Schinkel 2017, 2021; Schinkel et al., 2023). When philosophical sources claim that wonder originates in astonishment, admiration, perplexity or puzzlement (Hove, 1996; Hadzigeorgiou, 2014), this might refer to deep wonder. Glăveanu (2020) divides wondering at into a peaceful wonder close to contemplation and a tense wonder close to astonishment.

Wonder about is described as an active wonder which motivates us to seek new knowledge (Goodwin 2001). It has also been described as ‘to wonder’ or ‘wondering why/how’, and it includes a drive to explore and a desire to know or understand the why and how of something that causes awareness, amazement or puzzlement (Schinkel, 2017, 2020). Such active or inquisitive wonder has a ‘not-yet-knowing’ nature and may drive us towards curiosity and active exploration (Schinkel, 2017, 2021). When educational research describes wonder as being ignited by perception rather than reflection (Lindholm, 2018), this might point back to active wonder.

While wonder is often thought of as a philosophical pondering (e.g. Opdal, 2001), Hove (1996, p. 450) argues that wonder contains more than language can describe, and he argues that it has non-verbal aspects. Wonder is a state of mind or feeling, or what Hove (1996) sees as an emotion. It is an elusive experience that may be silent (Hadzigeorgiou, 2014). Lindholm (2018) suggested to interpret wonder as silent and as embodied experiences that trigger the senses. Sensual and perceptual experiences lead to an aesthetic dimension of wonder. Such sublime experiences have been linked to aesthetic motivation (Hadzigeorgiou, 2020). We hence see existential, embodied, affective, aesthetic, and sensual dimensions of bodily wonder.

Both Schinkel (2021) and Glăveanu (2020) suggest models that illustrate the complexity of the multiple dimensions of wonder. Schinkel (2021) argues that the relationship between inquisitive and contemplative wonder can be understood in the light of a plenitude of experiences. He exemplifies these dimensions with puzzlement, a desire for knowledge and aesthetic experiences, but highlights that there may be many more. Glăveanu’s (2020) dynamic model of wondering underlines how wonder is made up of interdependent processes of excitement, awareness and exploration. These are integrated experiences, as all three may take place at once, or we can move back and forth between exploration and awareness while experiencing excitement. Glăveanu (2020) further illuminates the complexity of wonder in light of active/passive and immersion/detachment dimensions in his structural model of wonder. He further sees wonder as manifested in experiences of contemplation, awe, pondering, and curiosity.

Curiosity

Dewey (1910) described curiosity as a desire for fullness of experience. He illustrates a flowing process that starts with physical curiosity caused by sensory experiences, which develops through social influence and intellectual curiosity to an interest in problem-solving. This shows some of the complexity and multidimensionality that make curiosity a hard concept to define. One example of this is that even if a need for knowledge is considered as definitional in curiosity, it is often not explicit in studies on curiosity (Grossnickle, 2016). A helpful distinction has been to separate between the mutually dependent factors of curiosity as stable personal characteristics, traits, and as immediate experiences, states (Spielberger, 1975). Trait curiosity is linked to personality such as stress tolerance and sensitivity towards deprivation of knowledge, joyous exploration, thrill-seeking and overt and covert social curiosity (Kashdan et al., 2017, 2020).

The complexity in state curiosity is evident when Jirout et al. (2024) describe it as information-seeking behaviour driven by an internal desire for information related to an object of curiosity. Their operationalisation implies a cognitive awareness as part of the process of curiosity. State curiosity that takes the form of questions raised from intellectual uncertainty, complex ideas and conceptual ambiguity is termed epistemic curiosity (Berlyne, 1954). When studies in science education link science-relevant curiosity to curiosity about the nature of an object or phenomena, wonderment about causal effects, teleological effects or the inconsistencies of observations (Luce and Hsi, 2015), we understand this as an epistemic curiosity. Enhanced reflection and experiential questioning have been further seen as a deeper epistemic curiosity (Lindholm, 2018).

Sensory impressions which lead to exploration have been termed perceptual curiosity (Berlyne, 1954). While Collins et al. (2004) show that perceptual curiosity involves seeking both knowledge and sensory experience, Jirout et al. (2024) describe perceptual curiosity as shallow, sensory-seeking behaviours. Perceptual curiosity, hence, facilitates embodied aspects of curiosity and increases attention to embodied aspects of curiosity. Berlyne (1960, 1966) further separates between the specific curiosity that focuses the attention on a detailed investigation of a distinctive stimulus and the diversive curiosity with a shallow desire to know facts. This latter form of curiosity is often connected to questions with seemingly easy answers, answers that seldom lead to further investigation.

The relationship between wonder and curiosity

The research focus on wonder and curiosity has influenced how we understand these phenomena. It may seem natural that when philosophers and educational researchers work with wonder, they are more inclined to accept a broader and open understanding of the concepts, while psychologists are striving for a more precise definition of curiosity in their empirical work. Both wonder and curiosity are ways to direct us towards the world. The relationship between wonder and curiosity is, however, dynamic and while there are good examples of wonder leading to curiosity, curiosity may also lead to wonder (Opdal, 2001; Lindholm, 2018). Although this may develop further in a circular manner, where curiosity leads to wonder, which may lead to curiosity, we cannot infer causal links between these phenomena (Bazhydai and Westerman, 2020). The relationship between wonder and curiosity is, hence, still unclear.

Developmental aspects of wonder and curiosity

Children are assumed to be born curious and to sense wonder in all things and both small children and adults have been found to be curious and to wonder (Glăveanu, 2020, Jirout et al., 2024). Wonder and curiosity are considered important for our learning and cognitive development (Hodgkin, 1976; Loewenstein, 1994; Hove, 1996; Gauvain et al., 2013; Piersol, 2014; Schinkel et al., 2023; Jirout et al., 2024). While some studies suggest that wonder and curiosity decrease with age, others have found that wonder and curiosity stay stable or increase with age (Grossnickle, 2016).

Wonder and curiosity may, however, also have different forms, both in how they are expressed and how they are experienced. While an open wonder may appear all through life, wonder through asking questions, or to philosophise, requires language (Glăveanu, 2020). Two important factors in this are found in the early development of children: First, wonder and curiosity will be open and general, and as they learn and develop, their attention will be more specifically aimed towards the object of their wonder and curiosity. Secondly, their attention is gradually directed as their language skills develop, and this affects how wonder and curiosity are expressed (Glăveanu, 2020; Jirout et al., 2024). This development leads to different explorative practices; while children exhibit a wide-ranging focus during their exploration and explore when the opportunity arises, adults explore more when they are motivated by a clear learning aim (Liquin and Gopnik, 2022).

Expressions of wonder and curiosity

Although it is common to separate between speech and body, or between language and thought, this separation is not unproblematic (e.g. Vygotsky, 1965; Merleau-Ponty, 2012). Merleau-Ponty (2012) argues that one cannot separate cognitive and bodily experiences. Hove (1996) states that we stand speechless in the face of wonder. Wonder may be a state which is difficult to articulate in words, or even to think about (Glăveanu, 2020). This describes an internal process of wonder, experiences we have suggested to call bodily wonder, a wonder that does not seek cognitive understanding but rather a kind of embodied fascination (Heggen and Lynngård, 2021). Teacher educators further described physical exploration as a bodily curiosity, a kind of curiosity they valued equal or even higher than verbal curiosity (Heggen and Lynngård, 2021). This embodied curiosity can be seen in different ways, like exploratory behaviour, collecting or touching (Jirout and Klahr, 2012).

While open, embodied, wonder occurs at all stages of life, the verbal forms require the symbols of language (Glăveanu, 2020). These verbal forms may be pondering, philosophising or open questions (Schinkel, 2020). Verbal curiosity often manifests itself as questions, and children may be conceived as more curious if they ask more questions (Jirout and Klahr, 2012; Patrick and Mantzicoupoulus, 2015). Some questions are, however, more influenced by curiosity than others (Gauvain et al., 2013; Luce and Hsi, 2015; Jirout and Klahr, 2020; Jirout et al., 2024). Questions in pedagogical contexts are often also related to understanding the tasks at hand and to getting to know facts, as well as to seek a deeper understanding based on previous experiences and knowledge (Thulin, 2010; Skalstad and Munkebye, 2021). This makes it clear that not all questions are motivated by curiosity.

The dynamic model of wonder and curiosity

The complexities of wonder and curiosity reveal the challenges and show that there is a need for a unified understanding and recognition of these phenomena. Among the many dimensions included in both wonder and curiosity, we focus on two gradients. One depicts a gradual process between curiosity and wonder, and the other between verbal and embodied experiences and expressions. We suggest seeing these phenomena as interconnected in a model of how wonder and curiosity are experienced and expressed (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1: The dynamic model of bodily and verbal wonder and curiosity.
figure 1

The model shows the gradients (black arrows) and the fields of questioning, philosophising, physical exploration, and embodied fascination (dark blue characters). Aims and appearances are noted in lighter characters. The shaded area in the background reflects the importance of the environment.

Full size image

We see wonder and curiosity as mutually fulfilling, enhancing each other, not as opposing dichotomies. At the one end of a gradient, wonder may be depicted as deep wonder, and we place the more active or inquisitive wonder closer to curiosity. Continuing along this gradient, we gradually place curiosities towards a more specific problem. Equivalent to deep wonder at one end of the gradient, the curiosity with a profound engagement to perceive new knowledge is placed at the other end. This deep engagement at both ends of the gradient resembles each other in the engulfment that you allow yourself to dwell in.

These intermingling and gradually developing aspects of wonder and curiosity are seen in the light of bodily and verbalised experiences and expressions in the model. In this phenomenological study, we support ourselves on the unity of body and mind suggested by Merleau-Ponty (2012) and understand both verbal and bodily elements to be present in how wonder and curiosity are experienced. Although all wonder has bodily aspects, the experiences and expressions may be more or less bodily. Along the gradient, there is a transition from the bodily, as described in bodily curiosity and bodily wonder (Heggen and Lynngård, 2021), through the more verbalised, but not entirely phrased, as body language, to the verbal questions that are often depicted as the notion of curiosity. The gradient of body and speech in our model is not a suggestion that these are separate entities, but rather to show the presence of both forms of these intermingled forms of wonder and curiosity, and how one form may gradually predominate over the other. We do not suggest that the gradient of language and body reveals the only important factors in recognising wonder and curiosity. Rather, we think that this is too important to ignore and that apprehending these aspects better will help expand the understanding of wonder and curiosity.

Wonder and curiosity will always occur in and be affected by its context. The environment, both the physical and the social, will trigger and stimulate the different forms of wonder and curiosity. These perspectives are considered as underlying premises and are represented by the shaded background.

Verbal wonder takes the form of philosophising, as an exploration of ideas. Open ideas will be situated towards the end of the gradient, while more specific exploration is towards the centre. Bodily wonder occurs as an embodied fascination, as an investigation beyond ideas. This describes a meeting with the environment which you cannot express in words. In this state, you may be deeply connected with the surroundings, in deep wonder. While verbal curiosity takes the form of questioning, bodily curiosity takes the form of an active exploration to achieve new skills and insights.

Including both verbal and bodily aspects in an open way provides a richer understanding of wonder and curiosity. In any given situation, we move between these phenomena, and the relationship between them must be understood as open and dynamic. We suggest seeing the manifestations of embodied fascination, philosophising, exploration and questioning as equally valuable.

The dynamic model picks up the thoughts from previous models of wonder or curiosity. While our model combines wonder and curiosity, previous models tend to focus on one of these concepts. We suggest that wonder varies from Schinkel’s concept of deep wonder (Schinkel, 2017) at the outer edge of the model, and place active wonder (Schinkel, 2017) closer to curiosity. Berlyne’s concepts of specific and diversive curiosity (Berlyne, 1960) align with the continuation of our axis, with diversive curiosity towards the centre of the model, and specific towards the end of the axis. Similarly does Berlyne’s epistemic curiosity align with central perspectives along our verbal axis, and perceptual curiosity with central perspectives towards bodily curiosity (Berlyne, 1954).

Our model balances wonder and curiosity and treats them as distinct yet fulfilling phenomena. When our model focuses on the verbal and bodily aspects of wonder and curiosity, we do not suggest disregarding the multidimensional aspects of wonder and curiosity suggested by Schinkel (2021) and Jirout et al. (2024); we rather suggest that the connections between the verbal and bodily aspects of wonder deserve more attention.

Bringing the model to life

To expand the view of curiosity and wonder, we will investigate how lived experiences of the different varieties of wonder and curiosity in the model may appear. As the nature and expression of wonder and curiosity vary with age, we bring forward stories of both children and adults. We then discuss how each story relates to the model and which new insights they bring.

Philosophising—verbalised wonder

An eight-year-old girl and her grandmother are walking in the forest. Along the way, they chit-chat about everything. The girl is interested in nature and finds it exciting to talk with her grandmother about things she finds in nature. Today, they walk through a yellow field of flowering dandelions which catch their attention. After a while of silence, seemingly contemplating, the girl asks, “Why do dandelions exist?”

A group of kindergarten preservice teachers are in nature with their teacher educator. They have a lesson in ecology and learn about different plants and animals living in the forest. One of the students finds a big green shield bug on a leaf and puts it into his hand. “Wow”, he exclaims, and continues, “Hello little guy, who are you? I have never seen anything like this. It is amazingly green. Does that mean it is poisonous?”

The big existential questions in life, such as why we exist, or who we are, are among the classic manifestations of philosophising thoughts (Hepburn, 1984, Hove, 1996). When both the girl and the preservice teacher ask such questions, they explore ideas in what has been termed a contemplative or deep wonder (Schinkel, 2017; Schinkel et al., 2023). As argued by Schinkel (2019), such philosophical questions without answers pull towards a deeper meaning in the way that they move beyond the everyday meanings (the dandelion flowers in the field because of its beneficial environment in spring) and expose the limitations of our understanding (we cannot know why the dandelions exist). In this, they approach a verbalised, philosophical wonder.

Looking at the situations in our stories with phenomenological glasses, we can point to some features that are typical for verbalised wonder. Expressed in the dialogues with themselves, the grandmother or the teacher educator, both stories contain the starting point of a philosophical dialogue that explores thoughts and ideas. Typical of these situations is the mutual respect between the participants.

In these stories, we see how curiosity and wonder, and verbal and bodily experiences, are tightly linked. Both stories show starting points that can develop in different directions depending on the situations and the participants. While the preservice teacher starts with awe and deep wonder, which then leads to curiosity-driven questions (in line with Lindholm, 2018), the girl develops her deep, silent wondering, akin to those described by Hove (1996), into philosophical questions (in line with Opdal, 2001). Although it does not show in these two small stories, such conversations with verbalised wonder may take different directions and continue for a long time.

It is the environment that initiates and kindles the wonder in the two stories above. This important role of the environment has earlier been pointed out by Hove (1996), Hadzigeorgiou (2020) and Schinkel et al. (2023). The stunning yellow field of dandelions and the intense green bug are good examples of how aesthetic experiences may generate wonder (Hepburn, 1984). These examples also show how wonder may include feelings (Hove, 1996; Hadzigeorgiou, 2014), the girl when falling into silence, and the student in his joyful exclamation.

Embodied fascination—bodily wonder

We are in nature with a group of four-year-old children. A girl sits alone, some distance from the others. She holds a straw in one hand and slowly presses its point against the other hand. She keeps doing this for a long time while staring at her hand.

After a walk in the mountains, a preservice teacher described how she connected with the surroundings, “I was just sitting in the heather and felt nothing. After a while, I lay down with my arms straight out. At first, I felt tickling and itching, but eventually, it did not bother me. I didn’t think of anything. I just felt that my body, arms and legs became a part of the surroundings. It was a bodily experience where I entered a state of no thoughts of anything but being there in the heather.

We have described bodily wonder as a wonder that does not seek cognitive understanding, but an embodied philosophising, or rather an embodied fascination, as a more appropriate description of bodily wonder. As Merleau-Ponty (2012) argues, it is the body, with its senses, that perceives the environment. Accepting this means to acknowledge that our actions may be led by bodily senses, not necessarily by thoughts. We may see this in the way very small children who have not yet developed a language explore their environment. The girl with the straw and the student lying in the heather illustrate how such embodied fascination continues across ages.

The often-used example of star-gazing strikes us as another perplexing argument for the value of bodily wonder: When looking up at the stars, it is often argued that one starts wondering about our own place in the universe and our feeling of smallness. Not knowing what others feel, we argue that this situation rather fills us with awe and respect, a feeling of just being there, a bodily fascination. We believe that the feeling of smallness is rather something that comes in due time, based on what we have learned, like the distance and size of the stars. It lies in the very nature of embodied experiences that we cannot fully understand the inner life of others, and we may never know exactly how others perceive their environment. To interpret star-gazing as a situation where one wonders about our small place in the universe may be an effort to verbalise bodily experiences. In contrast, we suggest that our stories show how bodily fascination is important in itself, also without further verbal philosophising.

From a phenomenological point of view, bodily wonder resembles verbalised deep wonder in that it does not seem to aim for any concrete answers. Rather than showing signs of physical explorations, these situations are recognised by an immersive experience with a long-lasting focus, as shown by the girl and the straw. This situation may resemble how Hove (1996) suggests that peaceful sensory encounters with our environment may lead to wonder in a manner beyond words. Our stories are similar to the one that first sparked the idea of bodily wonder, where a boy sits with his hands in a little stream, repeatedly dipping, removing and studying his hands (Heggen and Lynngård, 2021). As in that study, the focus in our stories is bodily, with what seems to be no clear—at least no verbalised—agenda. The preservice teacher’s description of a bodily experience with ‘no thought of anything’ implies a non-verbalised experience. The wonder in our stories seems to develop from withdrawn situations, as earlier described by Opdal (2001). While we describe verbal philosophising as exploring ideas, we understand this embodied fascination as an investigation beyond ideas.

Embodied fascinations are often characterised by silence, and a lack of conversations, as they are directed inwards. Schinkel et al. (2023) describe wonder as ‘a feeling of a question’ and is clear that no question needs to be verbalised in the mind. The situations in our stories may look passive in relation to the surroundings, similar to what Glăveanu (2020) terms passive wonder. We argue, however, that although these situations do not imply a dialogue with other humans, both the girls and the preservice teacher seem to engage in an inner dialogue with their environment. Such dialogues may be hard to recognise, but can resemble the embodied dialogues with the environment described by Blenkinsop and Piersol (2013). Only the preservice teacher describes this with words, but a non-verbal dialogue also seems evident in the connection between the girl and the straw. Bodily wonder may hence relate to situations where the dialogue is not between humans but rather between the persons involved and their surroundings.

Physical exploration—bodily curiosity

A girl who is nearly two and a half years old is out in the garden climbing on a rock wall about 2-3 metres high. There is grass below the wall, and an adult stands nearby. The girl looks carefully at the rock, stretching out her right hand, and gets a good grip. Thereafter, she seeks a hold for her right foot, finds it, and lifts herself carefully. Then, she finds a new hold for her left foot. She is concentrated but smiling. She slides down and repeats this several times. Then, she explores a new route.

On the last day of a field course, preservice teachers develop science activities for small children. The rain pours. One of the groups starts damming a stream. As the stream becomes stronger from the heavy rainfall, they try new materials and different sizes of logs and rocks. They work with their dam for a long time, and despite the heavy rainfall, none of them are ready to leave on time.

Curiosity is often linked to active exploration, both verbally and bodily. The stories of bodily curiosity show how physical exploration may be easy to observe, although it is often hard to articulate exactly what is explored and experienced.

In these stories, we recognise bodily curiosity as a sensory, active and embodied search for answers, involving physical exploration. The climbing girl actively explores the climbing routes of the garden wall. Like many children before her, she finds one route and climbs that until she is familiar with it, and then she moves on to a new challenge. This resembles a perceptual curiosity (Berlyne, 1954), and she seems to use her visual and tactile senses to explore a specific curiosity (Berlyne, 1960). This exploration leads to new sensory impressions.

In our story, the girl shows eagerness, focus and physical exploration of bodily curiosity; she gains insights into what her body can do. These insights can hardly be transferred to verbal phrases, but more importantly, we argue that bodily impressions, formed by sensory perceptions, are valuable in themselves, also when we remain unable to articulate these reflections. While the girl is curious about what her body might do, bodily curiosity also includes a perception of the environment through the body. Both the girl and the preservice teachers learn about the environment in these physical explorations. The preservice teachers also explored joyfully and bodily in what we see as a bodily curiosity. Although they can articulate many of their experiences and reflections, they did not seem to feel the need for it. The bodily curiosity was important in itself. We argue that the value of embodied fascination reaches beyond initial feelings and lasts for a long time.

Curiosity may be focused on different objects (Coie, 1974; Jirout et al., 2024), and while the girl explores her own body, the students’ curiosity seems to evolve around physical properties. Perception of the environment is based on earlier cognitive and bodily experiences (Merleau-Ponty, 2012). When the girl and the preservice teachers get tactile experiences and embodied knowledge of their environments, they achieve new skills and gain valuable sensory and cognitive perceptions.

These stories show that, as with bodily wonder, bodily curiosity also includes aspects of silent communication with the environment. While climbing involves a sensory connection between the climber and the wall, building dams and other sorts of water play may include bodily communication with the rocks and the water.

Carruthers (2024) has another intriguing example of a sensory, active and embodied search for answers, when he describes a lost bee searching for her hive in a physical exploration of the environment. The familiar behaviour of the climbing girl resembles the actions of these bees, when she re-tries to climb until it works. This includes another interesting element of bodily curiosity, drawing lines to the curiosity of animals, and, indeed, to the larger question: Does curiosity imply a meta-cognitive perspective in the desire to learn? We ask, however, whether bodily curiosity and indeed perhaps bodily wonder may be a non-cognitive state of wonder and curiosity?

Questioning—verbal curiosity

A girl, 4 and a half years old, sits on her knees next to a little pond, looking at tadpoles. She catches them in a colander and puts them into a bucket of water. She is very eager and is looking into the bucket trying to count them. The little girl talks to herself, studying the pond and the surroundings before she asks the adult, “What do they really eat?”

A group of preservice teachers collects animals in a little lake. They put the animals into tubs and try to identify them. One of the preservice teachers is grasping her colander in the mud and screams out, “What is this!” when she catches a big dragonfly-larva. The teacher explains and tells them what it is, and points to a flying adult dragonfly. “But why does the larva have such a different life from the adult?”, one of the preservice teachers replies.

Verbal curiosity may be the most obvious and easily recognisable form of curiosity, and these familiar situations show how both the girl and the preservice teacher are interested and engaged. The questions in these stories are both factual and explanatory. Both the girl and the student are active in their explorations and eager to seek an answer. The stories start with sensory experiences which lead to verbal curiosity and questions, as described by Dewey (1910). We see this in the active gaze of the girl with the tadpoles, her attempts to catch the tadpoles and her further studies of them in the bucket. In the beginning, the girl shows a verbal and bodily curiosity, which develops into a specific question. The student combines her wonder with knowledge in a deeper epistemic curiosity, in line with Lindholm (2018) and Hadzigeorgiou (2014).

Both the girl and the preservice teacher use their bodily and verbal language when they ask questions. As body and language are interconnected, we consider these expressions of curiosity as a kind of verbal curiosity. Both verbal curiosity and verbal wondering are external expressions where dialogue with others is important. In verbalised curiosity, the participants in the dialogues want a clear answer and their questions are evident.

Possibilities in the expanded and dynamic view of wonder and curiosity

In this paper, we open and elucidate the concepts of wonder and curiosity and the relationships between them. We acknowledge that all models are simplifications and that our model only depicts one of a multitude of representations. We still believe that viewing wonder and curiosity as interweaving and complex with verbal and bodily aspects may pave the way to a more evident and nuanced understanding and recognition of wonder and curiosity. This may impact both our society in general and educational practices in particular. We also realise that even after having ‘lived with’ this model for several years, we do not see all the implications of this way of thinking. In the following section, we will consequently highlight some of the perspectives we find most curious and full of wonder, and we encourage others to question and wonder differently.

According to Merleau-Ponty (2012), we cannot separate the body from the cognitive processes of consciousness. In research on curiosity, it is, however, more common to investigate external expressions rather than internal experiences (Jirout et al., 2024). The connections between bodily and verbal perspectives in our model provide more nuanced perspectives on how we perceive, discover, recognise and understand wonder and curiosity. We argue that highlighting the less obvious signs of wonder and curiosity open up for a more balanced representation of wonder and curiosity. This is particularly important in philosophising, embodied fascinations and in the more silent forms of questioning. In this, our model directs the focus to quiet situations and the novel concept of bodily wonder. We wonder how this will look like in education and how it will influence society?

In Merleau-Ponty’s (2012) thoughts on bodily perception, it is the lived body that, through its senses, has an immanent ability to understand. In this way, it is the body that knows and that forms the basis for our understanding of the world. Michael Polanyi (2009) takes the view of bodily knowledge beyond that of perception and extends it to the knowing itself, in his concept of tacit knowledge. This leaves us wondering, may an increased focus on bodily wonder and curiosity contribute to an appreciation of other, perhaps new, embodied understandings of knowledge?

The ability to wonder and be curious should be strengthened throughout life. In 1996, Hove noted how ‘wonder may be easy to dismiss or ignore’ (p. 437). The place of wonder in education has since been the focus of several books and research projects and it now seems clear that wonder may no longer be dismissed (see e.g. Egan, 2013; Glăveanu, 2020; Schinkel, 2020, 2021; Schinkel et al., 2023). To support wonder, it may be important to recognise the subtle differences between wonder and curiosity. A curious child may want an answer or the possibility to explore, and a wondering child may need room, or help, to continue their ponderings (e.g. Hove, 1996; Jirout et al., 2024). To recognise these differences is particularly important as some are prone to philosophising while others are more interested in exploration (e.g. Kashdan et al., 2020). Our dynamic model may aid in reflections on how to recognise and support even subtle signs of wonder and curiosity. This makes us wonder further; how may a dynamic understanding of wonder and curiosity influence how we recognise and value embodied fascination, philosophising, exploration and questioning in education?

Both curiosity and wonder, hence, have prominent places in education, and valuing and acknowledging different forms of wonder and curiosity indicate new ways of working with learning with both children and adults. While asking questions has been seen as important to acquire new information and learning (Thulin, 2010; Skalstad and Munkebye, 2021), it has been argued that a focus on learning outcomes of such questions may limit the development of wonder and curiosity (Lindholm, 2018). The contribution of wonder is also often thought of as vaguer, although not less important, than that of curiosity. One example is when Hadzigeorgiou (2020) explains how it provides emotional and cognitive engagement, with a focus on children’s development rather than learning. One interesting example shows, however, how wonder affects the development of knowledge: Looking into how notions of play, beauty, and the joy of insight were important in the development of quantum physics, Zinkernagel (2022) underlines how sensuous encounters with natural phenomena may lead to the sublime, the limits of our current understanding, in other words, to wonder. While Zinkernagel (2022) describes Heisenberg’s bodily sensations as ‘deeply alarmed’ and ‘giddy’ in his development of theoretical physics, the pondering girl with the straw and the student just being in the heather show silent aspects of wonder. We now wonder, how may recognising embodied fascination alter the ways we look at learning and knowledge development?

Participation in our societies is an important aspect of modern life and there are multiple ways to participate. Expanding the forms of participation to include a recognition of what we are concerned with is then a way to let both children and adults participate (Grindheim, 2014; Heggen et al., 2019). Perceiving children and students’ wonder and curiosity provides opportunities for involvement in education. This makes it a democratic factor to follow children’s perspectives (Menning, 2017). As our wonder and curiosity reveal what is important to us, it has been argued that recognising bodily curiosity may be particularly important in supporting inclusive educational practices (Jørgensen et al., 2025). We now wonder, how may valuing embodied fascination influence participation in education and society? And further, which educational and societal changes may this lead to?

Participatory practices also affect our relations with the environment (Heggen et al., 2022). An important perspective in this is how embodied fascinations may reveal connections with our surroundings, as its silent form opens for other ways of communicating. Dialogues with the environment may take different forms, and when Blenkinsop and Piersol (2013) describe a selection of ways to communicate with nature, some of them resemble our story about the girl with the straw. In the way Merleau-Ponty (2012) sees perception, situations like the girl with the straw involve both body and mind, even when it seems like a purely physical activity. Another important perspective can be seen in how Næss describe the concept ‘ecological self’ (Næss, 1986/2005). Arguing that we recognise ourselves in the life of even simple organisms, he suggests that such experiences may expand our view of self, of our identity, from rather ego-centric to eco-centric. Explaining the background for this theory, he describes his bodily reactions when he witnessed the death of a flea, a good example of the connection between body and mind. These examples make us wonder how recognising the silent situations, the embodied fascinations, may help us meet the challenges of the Anthropocene?

We have highlighted the role of recognising wonder and curiosity in educational practices, in how we value different forms of knowledge, in different ways to participate in society, and in how we face the challenges of the Anthropocene. We suggest implementing these and other perspectives from the model in further research, whether it comes to operationalisations of concepts in psychology or recognition of wonder and curiosity in education. We also believe that the simplicity of the model makes it valuable for teachers and teacher educators and not only for specialised academic discussions within the fields of psychology, philosophy and education. Now, the process starts to bring these thoughts further.