Mary Colson is an eighth-grade Earth science teacher at Horizon Middle School, and Russ Colson is a professor of geology and Earth science education in the Department of Anthropology and Earth Science at Minnesota State University Moorhead, both in Moorhead, Minnesota. Since her first year in teaching eighth grade Earth science, in 1986, experience has taught Mary Colson to allow the students space to pursue their own questions more often. She writes that the result is nearly always greater student engagement in the lesson. Colson encourages science teachers to give themselves and students permission to pursue ideas that students find interesting. In planning to engage students in scientific practices, the authors write that they both frequently remind themselves weekly of the following: (1) Real Learning takes time; (2) Engaging students with the practices takes lots of time; (3) It's okay to not cover everything; (4) It's okay to try something new and fail at it; and (5) The six most powerful instructional words in the New Generation Science Standards (NGSS)-friendly classroom are: "I don't know; let's find out."