Few research studies in science education have looked at how stories, proverbs, and anecdotes can be used as scaffolds for learning. Stories, proverbs, and anecdotes are cultural tools used in indigenous communities to teach children about their environment. The study draws on Bruner's work and the theory of border crossing to argue that stories, proverbs, and anecdotes can be useful tools in the teaching of science concepts. The study uses a qualitative approach to understand how students in a secondary school in Uganda were appropriating stories, proverbs, and anecdotes to explain their understanding on health and HIV‐related issues. The data collection methods included interviews, focus group discussions, journaling, and document collection. The major finding is that use of stories, proverbs, and anecdotes drawn from the students' cultural context helps them understand science concepts. The main argument of the article is that cultural tools (stories, proverbs, anecdotes) can be used to scaffold students' learning of scientific concepts. The implications are that stories, proverbs, and anecdotes can be used to help students may not be inclined to science, to enter into the world of science by linking their everyday world to the culture of science. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 53: 943–971, 2016

Combating the spread of HIV/AIDS in Uganda has involved massive public education campaigns. One of the challenges of these campaigns has always involved the need to simultaneously respect and transcend cultural taboos around direct discussions about sexuality and sexual issues, particularly among youth. Research consistently shows that drawing, as a means of investigating what students know, has the potential to reveal students’ perceptions of given concepts and provides an alternative to predominantly language-based methods. Visual methods, however, have rarely been taken up in research on students’ sexual health and HIV/AIDS knowledge. This interpretive case study examines the use of cartoon drawing as a unique tool for understanding Ugandan secondary students’ conceptions of HIV/ AIDS, particularly concepts that are not directly discussed culturally.

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