AbstractThe present work is framed as a research oriented learning model. It is an exploratory study aimed at posing anexperimental problematic situation as a research task to students attending the basic level of secondary education,observing how it is solved and analyzing the students’ ideas before, during and after the process. The activities wereorganized in a working guide designed by the researchers and they included strategies directed to qualitative treatmentof problematic situations, to the formulation of hypothesis, to the design and accomplishment of experiences in smallgroups in order to contrast the formulated hypotheses and to the communication of the results. This perspective of thescientific research as an open and creative activity fostered the students’ participation in the group work and theexplicitness of their own ideas, the search for alternative solutions to a problematic situation and the acceptance of thepoints of view of their pairs. The permanent reflection on the research activity led the students to regard it as acontinuous process of knowledge construction and reconstruction.