This article describes a general education course offering, Physics and the Arts. During the development of this course, physics and arts faculty collaborated closely. We cover the usual physics phenomena for such a course--light, color, and sound--in addition to gravity, equilibrium, and spacetime. Goals of the course are to increase students'…

Introductory undergraduate science courses are traditionally offered as distinct units without formalized student interaction between classes. To bridge science courses, the authors used three Honors Organic Chemistry projects paired with other science courses. The honors students delivered presentations to mainstream organic course students and…

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)…

As part of a Howard Hughes Program for Innovation in Science Education grant at Iowa State University, a series of interdisciplinary graduate teaching assistant learning communities (TALC) were developed. The purpose of these communities was to create an environment to facilitate teaching assistants' pedagogical development and training to enhance…

The authors have developed and implemented a novel general education science course that examines scientific knowledge, laboratory experimentation, and science-related public policy through the lens of feminist science studies. They argue that this approach to teaching general science education is useful for improving science literacy. Goals for…

Core concepts can be integrated throughout lower-division science and engineering courses by using a series of related, cross-referenced laboratory experiments. Starting with butane combustion in chemistry, the authors expanded the underlying core concepts of energy transfer into laboratories designed for biology, physics, and engineering. This…

"How the World Works" is an interdisciplinary science and mathematics course in which students design and perform their own experiments, analyze the data, and present their results orally and in writing. Evaluations indicate that most students learn how to do science and gain a better appreciation for science as a process. (SAH)

Describes a course that mimics experiences in research laboratories, engages students in collaboration, and reflects trends in educational reform. (YDS)