We describe a third-year undergraduate course that focuses on multiscale modeling and protein folding and has as its primary goal the encouragement of students to integrate thinking across and beyond disciplinary boundaries. The ability to perform innovative and successful research work in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics)…

The author makes a case for fieldwork as having a strong capacity for increasing both science and nonscience majors' abilities to learn complex concepts, with the added benefit of actively engaging minority and female students in science.

Quantitative reasoning is a key intellectual skill, applicable across disciplines and best taught in the context of authentic, relevant problems. Here, I describe and assess a laboratory exercise that has students calculate their "carbon footprint" and evaluate the impacts of various behavior choices on that footprint. Students gather…

How can science instructors prepare students for the statistics needed in authentic inquiry labs? We designed and assessed four instructional modules with the goals of increasing student confidence, appreciation, and performance in both experimental design and data analysis. Using extensions from a just-in-time teaching approach, we introduced…

The University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez (UPRM) serves approximately 12,800 students. Of these students, nearly 100% qualify as underrepresented minorities by U.S. federal standards. In line with a nationally recognized need to increase students from ethnic minority groups to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and math, the UPRM…

Two separate writing-to-learn activities in which students wrote to authentic audiences outside of the instructor were used in a college integrated science course, Science of Water. For the first task, students were asked to write to fourth-grade students, and for the second, students were asked to write to their academic advisor. An overview of…

One of the concepts taught to science students is the use of hemocytometer. Students in microbiology, genetics, and anatomy and physiology (A&P) classes use the hemocytometer in a variety of activities. In microbiology and genetics classes, it is used to quantify yeast cells, while in A&P classes; students learn how to count blood cells. This…

Hypotheses of population genetics are derived and tested by students in the introductory genetics laboratory classroom as they explore the effects of biotic variables (physical traits of fruit flies) and abiotic variables (island size and distance) on fruit fly populations. In addition to this hypothesis-driven experiment, the development of…

Scientific modeling is an integral part of contemporary science, yet many students have little understanding of how models are developed, validated, and used to predict and explain phenomena. A simple modeling exercise led to significant gains in understanding key attributes of scientific modeling while revealing some stubborn misconceptions.…

To address the confusion resulting from difficulties with proportional reasoning among preservice physical science students, a cube-assembly activity was used to bring a sense of concreteness to abstract ideas. The activity took students from the concrete step of assembling cubes of various sizes and directly measuring their properties to slightly…

Students' learning about the nature of science (NOS) consists of two related aspects that include their understandings of and ability to apply science processes, and their beliefs about NOS. To help students develop such understandings, the New Society activity gets them talking to each other about science, using the language of science such as…

Three local colleges in the Lehigh Valley collaborate on a service-learning project called Brain Awareness Day to enhance neuroscience literacy among the public regarding the functions of the brain and benefits of brain research. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)

Students in a general biology class used a learning contract where they selected chapter-relevant activities they could complete through several formats: oral, written, or artistic. The majority of students felt they learned a lot with this method, the process was motivating, and that it should be used in future semesters. (Contains 6 figures.)

Most students have heard about situations in which the paternity of a child is questioned; in a surprising reversal, in this case study, maternity is in question. Designed for an introductory biology course, the case involves concepts from genetics, inheritance, and the formation of pedigrees. Students develop hypotheses to explain how a mother…

Using "Science News" as a teaching tool promotes writing about science, talking about science, and broadening students' views about what science is. This article describes an ongoing assignment in which students choose one article from "Science News" each week and write a brief summary and explanation of why they picked that article. (Contains 1…