An examination of the National Science Education Standards (National Research Council, 1996) and the Benchmarks for Science Literacy (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1993) reveals that science teaching is a complex activity. For a teacher to be effective, he or she must have theoretical, as well as practical knowledge and abilities about science. However, the content knowledge of facts and principles underlying expertise in a discipline such as clay science differs from the pedagogical knowledge (knowledge of effective teaching strategies) necessary for successful teaching (Redish, 1996; Shulman, 1986, 1987). Expert teachers must not only know the subject matter, but must be familiar with the typical difficulties students encounter as they study clay science. They must know ways of explaining and making connections between concepts to help students understand, and strategies for helping students through difficult material. Hands-on activities related to real-world situations facilitate a student's learning of a concept by enabling the student to transfer learning from the classroom to other settings. When a concept is taught in multiple contexts, and includes examples that embrace a wide application of learning, students are more likely to abstract general principles and therefore be able to transfer the learning to new situations (Gick and Holyoak, 1983; Bjork and Richardson-Klavhen, 1989). This paper focuses on one of the tools necessary to be an effective teacher, that of generating student curiosity and self-questioning through a discrepant event, a simple demonstration that