In the first three parts of this series on scientific storytelling, we explored how students bring their own stories into the classroom, how the history of science reveals subtle but important elements of how science works, and how stereotypes can limit whether students feel they belong in the story of science.
In this fourth and final part, we’ll look at the many ways narrative can enhance your science classroom—whether through children’s books, short stories, novels, or movies. Fiction gives you the freedom to play, to ask “what if,” and to explore how science interacts with the world around it. Whereas the genre of science fiction has long led the way in this kind of imaginative exploration, all forms of narrative can serve as powerful tools in the science classroom. Consider the following ways to incorporate narrative into science teaching.
Use a story as a hook
Stories are an incredible way to spark student curiosity at the start of a unit. For example, in a desperate attempt to make a lesson on the scientific method more engaging, I once turned to an unlikely resource: Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
In one scene, a group of medieval villagers claim they’ve found a witch and appeal to Sir Bedevere for judgment. Bedevere leads them through a hilariously flawed “experiment” to determine if she’s a witch—including weighing her against a duck. Despite the absurd logic, the scene neatly (and humorously) illustrates the basic steps of the scientific method: asking a question, gathering data, forming a hypothesis, conducting an experiment, and drawing a conclusion.
The value of the Monty Python scene does not come from its scientific accuracy but from its ability to get students thinking creatively about the topic of the scientific method. From there, we could launch naturally into a discussion of logical fallacies, pseudoscience, and nuances in the process of science.
Fiction gives you the freedom to play, to ask “what if,” and to explore how science interacts with the world around it. Whereas the genre of science fiction has long led the way in this kind of imaginative exploration, all forms of narrative can serve as powerful tools in the science classroom.
Connect with English class reading
Check in on what your students are reading in English and look for opportunities to tie in science topics. This can be a fun challenge: ask students to identify scientific themes or questions in their current literature.
Better yet, collaborate with English teachers to align your respective units. Here are some books that could easily pair with science content:
- The first story in A.A. Milne’s classic Winnie-the-Pooh, in which Pooh uses a balloon to float into the sky to reach a beehive full of honey, provides an opportunity to discuss physical characteristics such as weight, density, and viscosity.
- The Secret Garden would be the perfect companion to a unit on plants or starting a class garden.
- Students could experiment with developing their own taxonomy of dragons while reading How to Train a Dragon.
- A Wrinkle in Time naturally leads to exploring the characteristics of light and darkness, shadows and colors.
- Frankenstein offers a natural gateway to explore the definition of life and the ethical use of technology in science.
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn invites exploration of the Mississippi River ecosystem and environmental dynamics.
- To Kill a Mockingbird could prompt a discussion on genetics and why there’s no biological basis for race.
Interdisciplinary work reminds us that all of God’s creation is interconnected.
Create practice problems from stories
Rather than using dry word problems (e.g., “A child throws a 3-kg ball at 45 degrees with an initial velocity of 12 m/s…”), build practice problems around familiar characters or stories. This is particularly engaging when one story is used for a variety of problems throughout a lesson or unit.
You could also have students create practice problems for each other based on a story of their choosing. This approach blends reading comprehension with scientific analysis—making the work both challenging and fun.
Fact-check a story or movie
Sometimes a story’s scientific inaccuracies can offer a valuable learning opportunity.
One year, I concluded our electricity and magnetism unit with a viewing of the 2003 sci-fi film The Core, in which scientists embark on a mission to drill to the Earth’s core and restart its rotation. The film is rife with scientific errors, which I used to spark critical thinking in my students.
I would pause the movie at key moments, prompting them to identify the scientific claims being made and evaluate their validity. This approach allowed us to directly address and correct misconceptions. For instance, the film’s premise is that the Earth’s core stopped rotating, causing the planet’s electromagnetic field to deteriorate. This film choice provided a clear opportunity to clarify that the Earth possesses a magnetic field, not an electromagnetic one, and to explore the distinct phenomena and mechanisms underlying its function.
My Dean of Instruction dropped in on one of these days for my teacher observation. I panicked, afraid she would think I had shrugged off all instructional integrity. However, in our subsequent discussion, she noted the high level of student engagement and the effectiveness of the “creative twist” in fostering scientific thinking.
Ask students to write their own stories
Challenge students to write short stories that incorporate and explain scientific phenomena you’ve covered in class. For example, the summative assessment for my astronomy unit on stars was a creative project: students wrote a children’s book that told the epic story of a single star—beginning in a giant cloud of gas, moving through its formation and evolution, and ending with its death and return to interstellar space.
They were encouraged to name their star and give it as much personality as they liked as long as the story included hand-drawn illustrations and accurate descriptions of each stage. Students often had so much fun putting their own creative spin on the narrative that they barely noticed the intellectual challenge of translating a complex topic for a younger audience.
Writing stories can function as excellent formative assessments as well because they allow you to differentiate between students who can merely regurgitate a definition of a concept and those who can appropriately incorporate a concept into a new context. Mini versions of this activity can be used as a brain break or exit ticket. To make the assignment more engaging, add playful constraints:
- Write about an elephant’s surprising encounter with terminal velocity.
- Describe how a young girl playing in a forest accidentally disrupts the life of a busy ant.
These exercises deepen conceptual understanding while sparking creativity.
Frame science and faith discussions
Stories can be especially powerful when exploring ethical, spiritual, or societal questions that intersect with science.
Each November, my physics class would take a break from the textbook to watch the movie Contact (based on Carl Sagan’s novel), using it as a launchpad to explore the relationship between science and faith. The film’s main characters (an atheist scientist and a scientifically inclined priest) wrestle with belief, evidence, and the limits of scientific inquiry as they navigate responding to a possible communication from extraterrestrial life. Abstract questions (like “Does science support or undermine belief in God’s existence?” or “Do science and religion share the same goal of pursuing truth?) become relatable when embodied by characters in a compelling narrative.
Finding creative ways to weave stories into your science classroom can boost student engagement, deepen conceptual understanding, and provide richer, more meaningful assessment opportunities. Whether through literature, film, or student-created narratives, stories invite students to explore science not only as a body of knowledge, but also as a human, ethical, and imaginative pursuit.
