The ability to engage in informed decision-making about socioscientific issues (SSI) is an important aspect of scientific literacy. Although science knowledge and practice are necessary for developing solutions to SSI, additional skills are also needed to attend to the complex social, political, economic, and ethical concerns of such issues.…

At first glance, scientific laboratory experiences might appear to be challenging to move to the cloud. Skeptics may point to sensory feedback limitations and inequivalence of student outcomes. However, emerging data increasingly provide evidence that scientific laboratory courses are not only amenable to online learning, but also can deliver…

In response to STEM education reform efforts, many instructors have incorporated active learning into their courses. However, the relationship between instructor justification to students about the use of active learning and student perception of why instructors use active learning is largely unknown. To investigate instructor active learning…

The Advanced Interdisciplinary Research Laboratory (AIRLab) is a team-based multidisciplinary research course that focuses on the development of advanced skills including critical thinking, limits of knowledge awareness, metacognition, autonomy, professional capacity, and decision making in complex environments. For many students, AIRLab…

To develop a context for program-level design decisions pertaining to anthropogenic climate change, the authors studied the prevalence of courses focused on human-induced climate change in undergraduate marine science and environmental science degree programs in the United States. Of the 86 institutions and 125 programs the authors examined, 37%…

The most challenging global problems of our age involve coupled human--environmental systems within the Food-Energy-Water Nexus. The undergraduate students currently in our classrooms will be tomorrow's global citizens, each of whom must be prepared to understand and reason about these challenges and ultimately make decisions about them in a…

Although knowledge of disciplinary concepts and epistemic understanding of science are foundations of scientific literacy, students must learn to apply their knowledge to real-world situations. To engage effectively with contemporary water-related challenges with scientific and social dimensions, students need to understand the properties of water…

Deliberative democracy, a consensus model of decision making, has been used in real-life policy making involving controversial, science-related issues to increase citizen participation and engagement. Here, we describe a pedagogical approach based on this model implemented in a large, lecture-based, nonmajors introductory biology course at an…

If college science instructors are to use inquiry practices more in the classroom, they need both professional support to foster comfort with the pedagogy and practical ways to engage students in inquiry. Over a semester, we studied 13 community college biology instructors as they adopted bioinformatics problem-based learning (PBL) modules in…

This case study stresses the need to broadly consider an entire system, including all of the energy inputs and outputs involved, to determine the real efficiency of that system. It also asks its student audience to consider the role that scientific input plays in policy decision-making processes. It emphasizes that, despite the importance of this…

Not all demonstrations involve using exciting visual displays of one or a series of scientific principles. Demonstrations can be as simple as showing the interrelationship between scientific concepts or principles using concept maps. Concepts maps are tools that help people conceptualize and remember a conglomeration of facts making up complex…

The time and effort spent during the first days of a new semester are key to the success of the class that lies ahead. What happens during these first days can set a tone that inspires students to work actively and cooperatively to achieve success in the new semester, or to sit back and assume a "here we go again" attitude. In this article, the…