Studies of learning in school settings indicate that many students frame activities in science classes as the production of answers for the teacher or test, rather than as making new sense of the natural world. A case study of an episode from a class taught by the first author demonstrates what productive and unproductive student framing can look like in a science classroom. The case study demonstrates how some student activity commonly seen as undesirable may be evidence of productive framing, and activity commonly viewed as desirable may be seen as evidence of unproductive framing. (Contains 5 footnotes.)