**3. Scientific reasoning in context**

Much of the existing laboratory work on the development of scientific thinking has not *overtly* acknowledged the role of contextual factors. Although internal cognitive and metacognitive processes have been a primary focus of past work, and have helped us learn tremendously about the processes of scientific thinking, we argue that many of these studies focused on individual cognition have, in fact, included both social factors (in the form of, for example, collaborations with other students, or scaffolds by parents or teachers) and cultural tools that support scientific reasoning.
