As the dual crises of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and worsening climate change show, the public must be accurately informed about science. However, many barriers hinder effective messaging about science to the public, including little formal communication training for scientists and an abundance of misleading information from nonscientific…

Idiograms are graphical representations in which chromosomes appear ordered by their relative size, homology groups, and the presence of cytogenetic landmarks such as centromeres, secondary constrictions, and banding patterns. They have become crucial elements in cytogenetic research. Here, we describe a simple protocol for spreadsheet software to…

The loss of biodiversity is a global and local problem and challenge. The problem is solvable only with changed behavior, which can be achieved through education. In the literature, there are no criteria for achieving biodiversity literacy despite internationally binding documents, such as the United Nations' "Agenda 21" and…

Assessment of student learning is crucial to capture accurately student understanding of core concepts and competencies as well as to provide relevant feedback for informing teaching and learning. Yet, many instructors in two-year and four-year undergraduate institutions rarely have pedagogical training to design fair instruction and assessments.…

Evidence from isotopes other than radiocarbon shows that dinosaur fossils are millions of years old. Despite that, bone mineral from Mesozoic dinosaur fossils yields a falsely young radiocarbon "date" of less than 50,000 years, due to its accumulation of new radiocarbon via recrystallization. Similarly, the so-called collagen fraction of…

We introduce biology to the artist's design tool, the storyboard. This versatile organizing and visualizing artistic platform is introduced into the biology classroom to aid in an inventive and focused discovery process. Almost all biological concepts are dynamic, and storyboards offer biology, lecture, wet and computational labs, flexibility,…

Student populations in higher education are more diverse than ever before. Studies of classroom engagement have repeatedly shown that instructors act on implicit biases and that classroom participation is rarely equitable. What can instructors do to support diverse students, specifically with regard to managing classroom engagement and…

Mentorship plays an important role in the experiences of undergraduate researchers, and students may interact with multiple potential mentors in laboratory settings. Using qualitative methods, we explored the relationships between undergraduate students engaged in research and their mentors in faculty-led laboratories, with particular attention to…

High school students are very seldomly, if at all, taught that race is a social rather than biological construct, and this pedagogical omission has led to biological essentialism. Biological essentialism is the belief that race can be used in predictable ways to determine intellect and/or behavior. Biological essentialism can result in the belief…

Students need procedural understanding--that is, knowledge of the procedures that scientists use to establish scientific evidence (also known as "concepts of evidence"), to successfully perform scientific investigations, and to evaluate public and scientific claims. However, concepts of evidence are seldom explicitly targeted in routine…

We describe a series of three experiments in which students develop a model system for measuring the LC50 of household substances, using grass seed as the model organism. Students use statistical methods to compare two samples (using chi-square and Student's "t"-tests), conduct a two-level multifactor experiment to look at multiple…

Students come to science class with many ideas of how the natural world works, some of which do not match the consensus of the scientific community and can lead to misunderstandings. Because a growing body of educational research indicates that these misconceptions can serve as resources for learning, we developed a four-point plan to leverage…

The rise of "big data" within the biological sciences has resulted in an urgent demand for coding skills in the next generation of scientists. To address this issue, several institutions and departments across the country have incorporated coding into their curricula. I describe a coding module developed and deployed in an undergraduate…

Human rights issues can be topics of conflict, resistance, and indifference; thus, these issues are seldom broached in traditional college STEM courses. In this article, I share process, content, and sources used to introduce college students to the biology of the singularity of race and the biology of sexual identity. One or two class meetings on…

This project involves students in a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) as part of the traditional introductory biology laboratory course. Recently, research has shown that student engagement in authentic research has significant positive impacts on students, such as development of science literacy and reasoning skills. Being…