Preservice science teachers need to be put into situations where their existing conceptions of science, teaching, and learning are challenged in immersive, inquiry-based learning environments, before being asked to create similar spaces in their own classrooms. One approach to meeting this objective is through field-based geoscience courses designed for preservice teachers and education majors. The benefits that these experiences provide for preservice teachers’ self-efficacy, understanding of the nature of science, and science content knowledge are well documented. The study reported on here describes one such geoscience field course tailored for preservice elementary and secondary science instructors, and the impact that experience had on participating students’ ideas about science and teaching. Qualitative methods including In Vivo and emotion coding of transcripts from informal interviews with participants offer a unique opportunity for these preservice teachers’ voices to be heard, in their own words, as they reflect on their week spent in the field, and how that experience informed their conceptions of the nature of science. Findings suggest that the field geology course challenged preservice teachers’ existing epistemologies of science as they demonstrated a new understanding of the empirical, creative, and tentative aspects of scientific knowledge. Discussion of how these findings might be incorporated into the broader collection of science teacher preparation efforts is included.

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