The explicit-reflective approach to NOS was developed in response to the limited gains seen in implicit approaches (Akerson, Abd-El-Khalick, & Lederman, 2000; Akerson & Volrich, 2006; Khishfe & Abd-El-Khalick, 2002). The explicit-reflective approach to the teaching and learning of NOS involves explicit instruction of the agreed upon aspects of NOS and provides opportunities for students to reflect on their NOS understandings in conjunction with classroom-embedded inquiry activities. It should be noted that an explicit approach, as used here, does not necessarily refer to teacher-directed instruction. Rather, the approach deals with NOS understandings as desired cognitive outcomes that should be explicitly featured in teaching and learning activities that students engage in. Khishfe and Abd-El-Khalick (2002) specifically investigated the relationship between an implicit and an explicit-reflective approach to the teaching and learning of NOS. In their study, 62 sixth graders from Lebanon were divided into two groups. Both groups participated in the same six inquiry activities over 10 weeks and were given an open-ended NOS questionnaire targeting the tentative nature of science and the creative NOS in addition to other aspects prior to and following the intervention. One of these groups received no instruction that targeted NOS themes; therefore any gains in NOS understandings would have been achieved implicitly through participation in scientific inquiry. The other group was explicitly introduced to the targeted NOS aspects and discussed ways that these NOS aspects related to the inquiry activities in which they participated. The students that received explicit