Previous research has demonstrated creationist, Lamarckian, and teleological reasoning in high school and college students. These lines of thinking conflict with the Darwinian notion of natural selection, which serves as the primary catalyst for biological evolution. The current study assessed evolutionary conceptions in non-science majors,…

In a study spanning several years and including more than 1600 students, lab attendance was strongly correlated with lab grades (r = 0.64), lecture attendance (r = 0.49), and course grades (r = 0.60) in an introductory biology course. Regardless of the semester, lab attendance was lowest during the first week of the semester, and students who…

A laboratory exercise is presented in which students determine where metabolic heat is primarily generated in blooming eastern skunk cabbage ("Symplocarpus foetidus") plants. Students consider how color, shape, and orientation of spathes, and stage of flower maturation, may affect metabolic heat production and retention of both metabolic and solar…

This field exercise examines the feeding preferences of Gray Squirrels ("Sciurus carolinensis"). Students present squirrels with a variety of food types in a cafeteria-style arrangement in order to test hypotheses about foraging preferences. This exercise, which is appropriate for introductory biology, ecology, and animal behavior classes, is…

We developed a course in inquiry-based science for students training to become primary school teachers. The emphasis of the course was teaching students to do inquiry-based science activities themselves, as this is the best way of learning how to teach using inquiry-based methods. (Contains 1 table.)

A tool for teaching bioinformatics concepts to information systems majors is described. Biological data are available from numerous sources and a good knowledge of biology is needed to understand much of these data. As the subject of bioinformatics gains popularity among computer and information science course offerings, it will become essential…

Peer-reviewed literature is the single most important forum in which research findings are presented for critical review. College biology students can benefit a great deal from early exposure to this resource, but insufficient background information, technical jargon, and complex statistical analyses often present considerable obstacles to…

The project described in this article is less about the content area, computational cell biology, and more about the educational practice of the students and faculty involved. Over the course of the past four years, Dr. Raquell Holmes has worked to create curricular resources that support the integration of modeling methods in biology education.…

Up until a short time ago the Y chromosome played the role of the juvenile delinquent within human chromosomes. It was considered to be rich in junk, short on genes, and rapidly degenerating. Now the Y chromosome is growing up by providing a means for investigating human migration. Through the use of genetic markers on the Y chromosomes, students…

This study aimed to facilitate students' entrance to an introductory cell biology course for biology majors. The most prominent difficulty in this introductory course, is students' poor background-knowledge, such as a lack of understanding of very basic concepts and terms, and the huge differences in students' background knowledge. In order to…

Students who chose to enroll in a supplemental course associated with a large biology lecture performed better on lecture exams than those students who chose not to enroll in the supplemental course. Sections of the supplemental course were taught with instructor-centered methods prior to some exams, student-centered methods prior to other exams,…

Malathion is an organophosphorus insecticide, which is often sprayed to control mosquitoes. When applied to aquatic habitats, malathion can also influence the embryogenesis of non-target organisms such as frogs and fish. We modified the frog embryo teratogen assay in "Xenopus" (FETAX), a standard toxicological assay, into an investigative…

A discussion of the Demographic Transition is included in many Environmental Biology or Environmental Science classes. The Demographic Transition occurs as a nation becomes more urban and wealthy, and was widely observed in the twentieth century. The phenomenon includes decreasing family size (fewer children) across generations. In this classroom…

A major challenge in teaching the process of science to students is designing and implementing laboratory activities that emulate what is actually done in a research laboratory. To facilitate this effort, science educators have been encouraged to design exercises that span multiple laboratory periods, encourage independent thinking, promote…

There is a collective need to increase the use of inquiry-based instruction at the college level. This paper provides of an example of how inquiry was successfully used in the laboratory component of an undergraduate course in microbial ecology. Students were offered a collection of field and laboratory methods to choose from, and they developed a…