Many educational studies stress that knowledge about the nature of science should be an important component of science education. In this paper we present and discuss the potentiality of an activity of writing and discussing fictional stories about scientists to explore with students their main ideas about scientific activity. Data were collected by way of interviews with teachers and with students. Written documents were analyzed and naturalistic observation of discussion sessions was carried on. The results reveal that students have some distorted ideas of science and scientific activity. They also reveal teachers' difficulties with the organization of the discussion and the confrontation of students' ideas, which may prevent students from developing an understanding about the nature of scientific knowledge. Considering these difficulties, we suggest that this type of activity could be enriched by being integrated in a more real context, where students are encouraged to make connections to the work of real scientists.
Science education; Nature of science; Science teaching; Science fictional stories