There is a growing need for more effective interdisciplinary science instruction across undergraduate degree programs. In addition to supporting students' connections between disciplinary concepts, interdisciplinary learning can develop students' critical thinking skills and allow them to evaluate scientific investigations and claims between…

Organic molecules are invisible objects, but they can be visualized and manipulated by using molecular models. The object-based learning (OBL) approach, which is an educational tool developed for museums and collection items, is tailored and applied to a first-year bachelor course of organic chemistry. At the beginning of the course, each student…

This article presents ideas and narratives of an experiment on the concept of energy developed for an honors seminar on energy and a mechanics course. We argue that energy is an idea best taught in an interdisciplinary manner. While most physics courses explore ideas such as mechanical energy and conservation of energy, it is imperative that a…

The galvanic cell is a typical interdisciplinary topic, which is primarily taught in chemistry but its underpinning is closely related to physics. Student learning in galvanic cell has been extensively studied in chemistry education, which has revealed a large number of misconceptions that are difficult to change through traditional instruction. A…

Physics and mathematics represent closely intertwined fields, wherein physicists employ mathematical modeling to address intricate problems. A challenge encountered by physicists involves bridging conceptual understanding with mathematical equations, a task that educators can facilitate by supporting students in navigating these two realms of…

Much of physics involves the construction and interpretation of equations. Research on physics students' understanding and application of mathematics has employed Sherin's symbolic forms or Fauconnier and Turner's conceptual blending as analytical frameworks. However, previous symbolic forms analyses have commonly treated students' in-context…

New approaches to microbiology education are needed to ensure equitable representation in microbiology and to build literacy in microbiology and science broadly. To address this goal, we developed a course held at the collegiate level that uniquely integrated microbiology, Indigenous studies, science and technology studies, and arts and…

Wicked problems have been characterised by their high epistemological and axiological complexities. These are the kinds of problems that may invade our classrooms because many of them concern many stakeholders, including our students. Several approaches have been developed to address wicked problems in various contexts. However, little is known…

Causal mechanistic reasoning is a thinking strategy that can help students explain complex phenomena using core ideas commonly emphasized in separate undergraduate courses, as it requires students to identify underlying entities, unpack their relevant properties and interactions, and link them to construct mechanistic explanations. As a…

This study explored the views of 63 Taiwanese pre-service teachers who had participated in a workshop about the value of integrating drama-based approaches in their practical science learning. It was primarily designed to investigate the pedagogical approach of Heathcote and other founders of process drama. In addition, it examined specific claims…

There is a gap between the importance of certain archeological material sources and their perception, both by professionals and by the general public. Textiles, for example, are essential to understanding practices that marked daily life and rituals in the past, but they have often been extremely degraded over time, particularly in temperate…

This paper describes an interdisciplinary collaboration of faculty and students from chemistry and mathematics to develop and implement an activity showcasing the relevance of calculus in chemistry to first-semester calculus students. The activity focuses on using calculus optimization methods to maximize the ground-state radial probability…

Despite the intrinsic interdisciplinary nature of STEM, teaching interdisciplinarity in the classroom is difficult and students struggle to find the applicability of concepts and skills in different scientific disciplines. In this work we propose a micro-credential "badge" system called Demonstrated Understanding of Core Knowledge (DUCK)…

Existing research primarily examines the impact of structured, credit-bearing service learning in undergraduate chemistry, leaving the potential contributions of co-curricular service learning and its lasting influence on chemistry graduates underexplored. Therefore, this mixed-methods study aimed to assess the lasting impact of co-curricular…

This work is a course proposal for a stronger ethics education component for chemistry undergraduates. We propose that this course should integrate different approaches in ethics with the value-laden and scientifically complex issues that arise in chemistry. Although some programs require that students take some ethics as a core requirement, for…