Recent research in science education examines the possible relationship between learners understanding of nature of science (NOS) and the utilization of argumentation as a pedagogical tool to aid in developing learners NOS views. Christine McDonald will provide an overview of her research conducted with preservice and inservice teachers in this area. She will identify various contextual factors, task-specific factors, and personal factors that were found to mediate preservice teachers NOS views. She will also consider the epistemological authenticity of argumentation tasks that may be utilized in the science classroom, and outline a framework for high quality argumentation task design to facilitate the development of epistemologically authentic tasks. The crucial role of explicit NOS instruction will also be considered in a discussion of inservice science teachers views of NOS. She will conclude by outlining details of her current research focused on examining representations of NOS in middle school science textbooks. A light lunch will be provided.