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Most of the physics (as well as the other sciences) taught in school can be described as well-established or consensus science. This is the kind of science knowledge that was mostly developed over a century ago. The inclusion of contemporary science research in compulsory school science teaching could be justified from a variety of reasons: increasing students' interest and motivation; providing insights into modern research practice; and as a frame for teaching nature of science (NOS) perspectives. The present article focuses on the latter--contemporary science as a means to teach NOS. The article builds on data from an in-service teacher training course that focused on ways to include contemporary science in lower secondary physics education. Each course participant chose a research area, interviewed a scientist, and wrote a popular science article based on the interview. The article was written with secondary students (13-15 years old) as a target audience. By the end of the course the participants designed, implemented and evaluated a teaching unit which was based on the popular science article. The present article analyses what NOS perspectives that have been included in the popular science articles. The results show a high diversity of NOS aspects, which indicate a great potential for taking contemporary science research as a starting point for NOS teaching.

In the science education research field there is a large body of literature on the "nature of science" (NOS). NOS captures issues about what characterizes the research process as well as the scientific knowledge. Here we, in line with a broad body of literature, use a wide definition of NOS including also e.g. socio-cultural aspects. It is argued that NOS issues, for a number of reasons, should be included in the teaching of science/physics. Research shows that NOS should be taught explicitly. There are plenty of suggestions on specific and separate NOS activities, but the necessity of discussing NOS issues in connection to specific science/physics content and to laboratory work, is also highlighted. In this article we draw on this body of literature on NOS and science teaching, and discuss how classroom situations in secondary physics classes could be turned into NOS-learning situations. The discussed situations have been suggested by secondary teachers, during in-service teacher training, as situations from every-day physics teaching, from which NOS could be highlighted.