Games and Playful Activities to Learn About the Nature of Science

Abstract

A growing international consensus holds that science education must advance beyond content coverage to cultivate robust understanding of the Nature of Science (NoS)—how scientific knowledge is generated, justified, revised, and socially negotiated. Yet naïve conceptions persist among students and teachers, and effective, scalable classroom strategies remain contested. This narrative review synthesizes research and practice on games and playful activities that make epistemic features of science visible and discussable. We organize the repertoire into six families—(i) observation–inference and discrepant-event tasks; (ii) pattern discovery and rule-finding puzzles; (iii) black-box and model-based inquiry; (iv) activities that dramatize tentativeness and anomaly management; (v) deliberately underdetermined mysteries that cultivate warrant-based explanations; and (vi) moderately contextualized games. Across these designs, we analyze how specific mechanics afford core NoS dimensions (e.g., observation vs. inference, creativity, plurality of methods, theory-ladenness and subjectivity, tentativeness) and what scaffolds transform playful engagement into explicit, reflective learning. We conclude with pragmatic guidance for teacher education and curriculum design, highlighting the importance of language supports, structured debriefs, and calibrated contextualization, and outline priorities for future research on equity, assessment, and digital extensions.