Exploring the nature of science with abnormal frogs

The discovery of frog abnormalities by students on a school field trip in 1995 sparked hundreds of scientific studies in search of the cause of abnormality. This Socio-Scientific Issue has been used as an inquiry-based learning exercise for training in the practice of science, but it is also well-suited to teaching the nature of science. Our goal here is to provide an integrative resource for biology and environmental educators to integrate the nature of science into their course context. We introduce frog abnormalities in the context of a socio-scientific issue for teaching the nature of science, review the frog abnormality phenomenon, suggest appropriate educational methods for this SSI, and offer ideas for non-science educators to connect to the sciences.