Recent consensus documents in science education (e.g., the Next Generation Science Standards) emphasize helping students develop facility with constructing and critiquing both claims and the evidence that supports them. While students typically view evidence as necessary for supporting scientific claims, they tend to "objectify"…

In this study we explored how dramatic enactments of scientific phenomena and concepts mediate children's learning of scientific meanings along material, social, and representational dimensions. These drama activities were part of two integrated science-literacy units, "Matter" and "Forest," which we developed and implemented…