Scientific literacy has been stated as perennial goal of science education. Nature of Science (NOS) has been indispensable component of scientific literacy. Thus, having students with desired understanding of NOS is the one of the main attainments to achieve scientific literacy. However, many studies have reported both science teachers’ and students’ lack of understanding of nature of science (e.g. Lederman, Abd-El-Khalick, Bell, & Schwartz, 2002; Lederman, 2007; Abd-El-Khalick, & Akerson, 2004). The development of NOS views of pre-service science teachers is important because the national and nationwide reform documents related to science education hold science teachers responsible for addressing NOS in their practice regardless teaching experience (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1993, National Science Education Standards, 1996, National Turkish Ministry of Education, 2004). On the other hand, research has revealed that adequate understanding of NOS does not guarantee translation of these concepts into instructional practices (Bell, Matkins & Gansneder, 2011; Abd-El-Khalick & Lederman, 2000). Therefore, in addition to having appropriate understanding of NOS, teachers also should possess necessary skill to translate this knowledge into their instructional practices. In that sense, pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for NOS is also required for the ability to teach NOS (Abd-El-Khalick, & Lederman, 2000). Both in-service and pre-service science teachers need to have certain level of PCK for NOS to be able to include it in their instruction (Abd-El-Khalick, 2005).  Given the fact that PCK improves during teaching experience, it is hard to make robust claims regarding pre-service science teachers’ PCK for NOS due to limited science teaching experiences. However, there could be opportunities for pre-service teachers to gain this experience other than teaching. For example, NOS integrated lesson plan preparation might be a good indicator for trajectory of PCK for NOS (Bilican, Tekkaya & Cakiroglu, 2011). Some researchers claimed that lesson plan preparation allows researchers to gain insights of PCK of both in-service and pre-service teachers (Mutton, Hazel & Burn, 2011; Rusznyak & Walton, 2011, Jacobs, Martin & Otineo, 2008). Thus, science teacher education programs should help pre-service science teachers gain more improved NOS ideas through explicitly addressing NOS in their teacher education courses. Consequently, pre-service teachers would be skilled enough to help their own students gain adequate views of nature of science. Therefore, there is need to understand how pre-service teachers developed their skills to teach NOS and what learning experiences would lead that development better. The research questions driven inquiry were:

         i.      What learning experiences do contribute to pre-service science teachers’ ability to integrate NOS into their instructional plans over science teaching method course?

       ii.      How do pre-service teachers develop their NOS practice over the science teaching method             course?

Abd-El-Khalick, F., & Lederman, N. G. (2000). Improving science teachers’ conceptions of nature of science: A critical review of the literature.International Journal of Science Education, 22(7), 665–701 Abd-El-Khalick, F., & Akerson, V. L. (2004). Learning about nature of science as conceptual change: Factors that mediate the development of pre-service elementary teachers’ views of nature of science. Science Education, 88, 785–810. Abd-El-Khalick, F. (2005). Developing deeper understandings of nature of science: The impact of a philosophy of science course on preservice science teachers’ views and instructional planning. International Journal of Science Education, 27(1), 15–42 Bell, R. L., Matkins, J. J. and Gansneder, B. M. (2011), Impacts of contextual and explicit instruction on preservice elementary teachers' understandings of the nature of science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 48, 414–436.