Scientists frequently conduct research in remote field locations, yet in close proximity to local communities. However, too often research conducted abroad involves collecting data and minimum or no engagement with local communities to communicate the broader scientific impacts. To address this deficiency, we worked with Ecuadorian school…

The creation and evaluation of known evolutionary histories and the implementation of student investigatory experiences on evolution are difficult endeavors that have only recently been feasible. The research presented in this dissertation is related in their shared use of digital evolution with Avidians as a model study system, both to conduct…

The excess of curriculum content is a well-known problem in high school biology. Some strategies to adjust the amount of content to the available classroom time have been proposed, but none has been widely accepted and applied. Furthermore, biology is frequently presented in high school not as an integrated science, but as a collection of…

There has been little consideration in the science education literature of schools or curricula that advocate creationism. Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) is among the world's largest providers of creationist science materials with a curriculum divided into a system of workbooks which students complete at their own speed. This article…

This dissertation is an extended prescription for the inclusion of social justice in high school biology (HSB) curricula. Chapter 1 is context: a review of social injustice (mainly racism) in the US, and the specious scientific justifications for it. Chapter 2 explores how three veteran teachers introduce social justice in HSB classes. A…

Interdisciplinary engineering programs have many perceived benefits including developing broader skills and an ability to work with complex real-life problems. However, the development of interdisciplinary programs faces many challenges including how to balance breadth and depth, how to integrate interdisciplinary learning into existing studies…

During the 1930s there was a significant shift in the debate about African colonial education. Above all, somewhat discreetly hidden behind the formal language of the educational documents, is the question of the challenge presented to the traditional literary/religious missionary curriculum, or even to the "adaptationist" debate about…

This essay details ways in which curriculum leaders can critically engage with contemporary needs to produce a "becoming-curriculum"--with lines of flight breaking free from prescriptive, reductive triangulations--by opening curriculum to present and future (rather than past) realities. Evolutionary theory, the work of Deleuze and…

The research completed by the authors into the teaching and learning of evolution and inheritance (2014 to 2018) seeks to understand the demands made by the revised National Curriculum in England (DfE, 2015) and to offer support. The commitment of the authors to applied research assumes more useful outcomes are likely when studies are conducted…

Evolution by natural selection is key to understanding life and of considerable practical importance in public health, medicine, biotechnology, and agriculture. "The Next Generation Science Standards" (NGSS) include natural selection among several evolutionary concepts that all third-graders should know. This article explores a novel…

The authors wanted to improve student learning of evolutionary concepts by integrating content across the biology major. In this article they describe the process used to develop support among members of the department and administration to implement and measure the outcomes of curricular reforms.

This article argues that Education Studies needs to develop its existing interdisciplinarity understanding of structures and agencies by giving greater attention to the modern process theories of self-organisation in the physical, biological, psychological and social sciences, sometimes given the umbrella term "complexity theory". The…

In this historical dissertation, I examined the process of curriculum development in the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) in the United States during the period 1959-1963. The presentation of evolution in the high school texts was based on a more robust form of Darwinian evolution which developed during the 1930s and 1940s called…

A primary goal of university instruction is the students' demonstration of improved, highly developed critical thinking (CT) skills. However, how do faculty encourage CT and its potential concomitant increase in student workload without negatively impacting student perceptions of the course? In this investigation, an advanced biology course is…

New Zealand has had a national school science curriculum for more than 80 years. In the past the evolution content of this document has varied, and has at times been strongly influenced by creationist lobby groups. The "new" science curriculum, to be fully implemented in 2010, places much greater emphasis than before on understanding…