Implementing nature-based learning (NBL) experiences in community college courses is an emerging area of exploration in higher education. This article describes how a faculty group was formed at an urban community college with the intention to explore how nature exposure impacts learning for community college students, with faculty members from…

Critical thinking is one of the 4C skills needed in 21st century education. This is the reason for the need to conduct a review to find an effort to improve critical thinking skills, especially in education. A relevant strategy in this effort is integrating STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) into the learning process. A…

Knowledge of scientific principles and practices is vital to creating informed citizens. At its core, science helps create citizens who question the why and how of things, while also increasing knowledge of the world and beyond. Humans by nature are curious and thrive when they are engaged in learning that relates to real-world situations relevant…

In Spring of 2023, I developed a special topics course titled "Collection Material Handling" to introduce students to museum management using Utah State University collections on the Logan, UT campus. The cross-listed upper-level course brought 16 USU students together from two disciplines: anthropology and natural sciences. The…

Students may find poetry a surprisingly rich, engaging, and accessible vehicle to motivate and synthesize statistical content. We share and discuss a project and activities used in workshops or a college statistical literacy course.

Hackathon has been growing and taking various industries by storm thanks to its flexibility and ability to fit into them. It has been proven successful and helpful in solving different IT and non-IT challenges. They also serve as an intriguing educational and networking tool, encouraging people to pursue innovative studies and activities. However,…

Background: For engineers who aim to address sustainability challenges, participating in transdisciplinary teams is key. Yet developing transdisciplinary knowledge, including systems thinking, metacognition, and empathic thinking, is not well supported in traditional engineering programs. Purpose: The extent to which selected learning activities…

In recent years, there has been a strong call for more fine-grained analyses of student engagement to better capture its nature as a situated, momentary phenomenon. This special issue aims to promote cross-disciplinary discussions about the complex processes involved in students' momentary engagement and learning situated in classroom contexts.…

Courses: Introduction to Communication (within a unit on culture), Intercultural Communication, Race and Communication, Gender and Communication, Media and Diversity, Dance Appreciation, and Introduction to Dance Studies (within a unit on culture). Objectives: This activity merges dance and communication to invite intercultural learning. Through…

Recent solar eclipses provide relevant real-world contexts for learning about the scientific phenomena of the lunar phases. News coverage of the phenomenon may have raised questions such as, "Why does the Moon look different at different times, and sometimes as if it is not there?," and "What patterns can be found in the lunar…

Today, problems such as climate change, drought, food crises, and pandemics have once again brought the effective use of natural resources back on the agenda. With STEM + based activities, an interdisciplinary learning approach, students are expected to design a product that will solve a problem from daily life and add value to it. Based on these…

This paper offers a scoping review of the educational approaches adopted to cultivate interdisciplinary processes in higher education courses and modules concerned with sustainability among students with disciplinary backgrounds. Twenty-two empirical peer-reviewed studies published from 2018-2023 were included and synthesised in the study. The…

Financial literacy is an essential skill for individuals, yet many countries are encountering many challenges to achieving the desired level of ideal financial literacy. Improving financial literacy requires integrating mathematical literacy with psychological, social, and cultural factors. Despite its importance, there is a lack of comprehensive…

We describe the components and implementation of an activity for multivariable calculus featuring applications to the field of chemistry. This activity focuses on the isobaric thermal expansion coefficient found using partial differentiation of the volume of an ideal gas with respect to temperature as pressure is held constant. Broader goals of…

Mathematics and Music are closely connected and their multifaceted relationship has been explored since ancient times. Pythagoras was one of the first who discovered and formalized one of those connections by studying the arithmetic of musical intervals, expressing them by numerical ratios and relating ratios to consonance/dissonance notions,…