This paper highlights the design process and implementation for an "all majors" undergraduate course that allows students a chance to reconnect with the natural world. During this course students explore a wide range of biological and physical science based topics that seek to highlight human intervention and our impacts on the planet.…

Bourgeois-based approaches to 'critical thinking' are failing to help students develop self-reflexivity and the capacity to think critically about the world. This circumstance has led some Marxist authors to claim that dialectics is the real form of critical thinking, so it should be introduced into teaching/learning activities. This advocacy for…

This study brings together insights from the Science Education Initiative with a new course, "Spy Novel Diplomacy: Propaganda and International Relations," which has been taught as a General Education Seminar for first year students. The class will continue on an annual basis from the spring semester of 2020 onward. Thus what follows is…

The majority of this essay describes the content, pedagogy, and assessments associated with an undergraduate, interdisciplinary honors seminar on science and religion. The seminar is structured around five major themes: (a) philosophy of science, religion, and their interactions, (b) historical and contemporary case studies, (c) the controversy…

The ACRL Framework for Information Literacy presents opportunities for moving beyond 'one-shot' information literacy sessions and creating a more scaffolded and embedded approach for instruction. We collaborated with faculty at [institution name] to create Framework-inspired information literacy learning objectives for first-year and third-year…

In recent years there have been concerted efforts among water science educators to increase the number and quality of interactive classroom, field, and lab experiences in undergraduate water resource courses. This article reviews the transformation of a traditional lecture-based hydrology course with a global emphasis to a field-based, integrated…

The field of astrobiology is concerned with the origin, evolution, and distribution of life in the Universe. It contains within it civilization-level questions such as: What is the future of humanity on Earth and can we successfully explore and settle other planets? As such, it offers an educational framework for both teaching basic science and…

The theme of survival in a post-apocalyptic or post-disaster scenario as context for science education is explored in this article. Though this theme is prevalent in a wide variety of popular media, only a small number of educators and researchers report having explored it as a means of engaging students, and there is almost no description of its…

For more than 50,000 years of Papua New Guinea's human history, Papua New Guineans have been making significant contributions to Science, particularly in the fields of Chemistry and Medicine. However, because of the absence of any written language for over 800 dialects, the information has not been recorded and the contributions of ancient Papua…

Using the Project-Based Learning (PBL) and Authentic Intellectual Work (AIW) models, we sought to create coursework that had value beyond the classroom. Refinements in the self-publishing book industry provide the opportunity to present student work to a larger audience and in a different, more engaging format. With the help of free software, our…

A course is described that prepares graduate students in the sciences to publish research, grounding them in the processes of academic publishing and encouraging them to publish their research in a timely fashion. This article addresses some key questions about the course: What previously unmet need does it meet? What subjects does it cover? How…

The First Year Seminar in Science (SCIE113) was developed during 2009/2010 academic year through an exemplary collaboration between faculty, administrators and educational support staff in the Faculty of Science at the University of British Columbia (UBC). SCIE113 reflects the vision and values of the Faculty of Science and UBC by offering an…

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)…

We designed a physics course for prospective elementary and middle school teachers to foster aspects of scientific thinking recommended in reform documents. Because the elementary school curriculum focuses heavily on literacy, we also explicitly integrated physics and literacy learning in this course. By integrating physics and literacy learning,…

This article addresses the importance of oral communication and many of its fundamental underlying principles. Emphasis is placed on oral presentations, particularly those used in science and engineering. Following this, the author provides a brief outline of an elective graduate level oral communications course that was developed and utilized to…