How science fiction worldbuilding supports students’ scientific explanation

Creating science fiction can engage both imagination and scientific reasoning. We offer examples of middle school students building science fiction explanations to justify their decisions during a week-long role-playing game (RPG) design workshop. Findings show how worldbuilding—that is, defining the game’s setting, history, and characters—supported students in formulating relevant science questions, integrating various science ideas into complex mechanistic explanations, and articulating and critiquing ideas. They also show the challenges students faced in balancing fiction and science to create credible game worlds; and how differences in participation affected collaborators’ ultimate abilities to explain. We conclude that RPG design has many affordances as a science learning environment, but also particular caveats for formal educators to bear in mind.