Offering core academic credits (e.g., math, science) for completing agriculture, food, and natural resources (AFNR) coursework at the secondary school level has the potential to increase the strength of the AFNR program as well as student interdisciplinary learning. Informed by the Career and Technical Education Student Typology, we explored the…

In order to thrive in today's uncertain environment, there is a need to master 21st century skills as well as knowledge of key subjects. Project-based learning (PBL) has been recommended as an important instructional strategy to prepare students for their future work and life. As teachers play an important role in classroom instructional practice,…

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'…

As science teacher educators attempt to prepare teachers to underscore the aims of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013) alongside the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (NGAC and CCSSO, 2010), they must pay close attention to the intersection of these two content areas. To address this challenge, the authors (a…

The STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) movement has developed from a non-educational rationale. Although some think it may enliven the delivery of maths and science in classrooms, the social and economic rationales are those that have initiated this movement. Spurred on by the global financial crisis, it is hoped that…

Mark Van Doren, the noted literary scholar, once remarked, "The college is meaningless without a curriculum, but it is more so when it has one that is meaningless." Many current critics of undergraduate curricula in America assent to the crucial need for programmatic renewal in our colleges and universities. They bemoan the cookie-cutter…

This 21st Century Skills Map is the result of hundreds of hours of research, development and feedback from educators and business leaders across the nation. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills has issued this map for the core subject of Science.

Described and assessed is the Interdepartmental Program in Engineering at the University of Rochester which allows engineering students the opportunity to design their own curriculum. (SL)

Describes a time tested program of interdisciplinary service courses at a small college. Presents advantages as well as drawbacks. (Author/CP)

Described is science content within an interdisciplinary core curriculum at the New School of Liberal Arts, Brooklyn College. The first two years of undergraduate work consist of art, literature, history, and science within a choice of five time periods. Also offered is a science and humanities course. (DS)

If science can be taught in a way that makes it accessible to the nonmajor, student fear of science would decrease. The topic of memory allows for an interdisciplinary analysis because films can be selected to complement the science. A course at Brooklyn College is described. (MLW)

Proposed is a three course sequence for all college students designed to raise the level of undergraduate scientific literacy. The rationale, topics to be covered, and an outline of an earth-systems course are presented. Problems in the implementation of such a sequence are discussed. (CW)

The report describes development of an alternative core curriculum of courses grounded equally in both mathematics/sciences and traditional humanities. The alternative core curriculum is based on the belief that mathematics, broadly defined, is the common language and basis for the contemporary revolutions in the physical sciences, social…

Focused on an interdisciplinary graduate program in water resources management, this case study illustrates how theory-into-practice integration occurred in a field course and clarified students' expectations that faculty model interdisciplinary ways of knowing.

In 1988, 11 faculty members at Kalamazoo Valley Community College (KVCC), Michigan, taught a customized honors class at KVCC focussing on connections between disciplines. It soon became clear how little faculty members understood and appreciated their colleagues' fields and perspectives. Following the course, faculty participants concluded that…