This study characterized students’ views of science as falling into three groups: static,
mixed, and dynamic. Those who view science as static assert that science consists of a group
of facts that are best memorized. Those who view science as dynamic believe that scientific
ideas develop and change and that the best way to learn these ideas is to understand what they
mean and how they are related. Students with mixed beliefs hold some static and some dynamic
views. This study also examined the relationship between views of science and acquisition of
integrated understanding of thermodynamics. We found that students with dynamic views acquired
more integrated understanding than those with static views. Participants were 153 middle school
students following the Computer as Lab Partner (CLP) curriculum. Students conducted both
simulated and real-time experiments using an electronic notebook during the 12 weeks of
instruction. Interventions encouraging students to integrate their experiences resulted in 89% of
students successfully predicting the outcome of an everyday situation and 77% of students being
able to succcessfully explain their prediction. We investigated how students preferred to integrate
their experiences and found that some students preferred a concrete prototypic locus for integration
while others preferred a more abstract principled locus of integration.