The interdisciplinary nature of food makes it an effective teaching vehicle in many fields. This article shows specifically how flavor and food fermentation, two topics not usually featured in the undergraduate STEM curriculum, can inspire a powerful interdisciplinary learning experience. Importantly, because of their accessible nature and…

Curricular guidelines promote standardized approaches to coverage of essential knowledge and skills in undergraduate education. The American Society for Microbiology (ASM) Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Microbiology were developed in 2012. Continuous, rapid growth of knowledge in science and a dynamic, changing world necessitate updates…

To guide students to make reasonable decisions in the face of adversity and pressure, a new general course named 'Introduction of Life Education' was established. The course was organized based on the knowledge of biological science, with the integration of social scientific issues on life health, food safety, environmental protection and…

Learning outcomes are an essential element in curriculum development because they describe what students should be able to do by the end of a course or program and they provide a roadmap for designing assessments. This article describes the development of competency-based learning outcomes for a one-semester undergraduate introductory human…

Curricular content in undergraduate biology courses has been historically hetero and cisnormative due to various cultural stigmas, biases, and discrimination. Such curricula may be partially responsible for why LGBTQ+ students in STEM are less likely to complete their degrees than their non-LGBTQ+ counterparts. We developed Broadening Perspective…

The Vision and Change report called for biology educators to transform undergraduate biology education. The report recommended educators transparently state what students should know and be able to do and create assessments to measure student learning. Using backward design, learning objectives (LOs) can serve as the basis for course…

Recent science reform advocates for the inclusion of engineering design to teach science and represents a shift to so-called three-dimensional (3D) learning. This shift often requires science instructors to adapt their current curriculum to integrate 3D learning. To support this shift, the current study illustrates the collaborative development…

We describe an advanced, inquiry driven undergraduate course in Cancer Biology that combines faculty lectures typical of undergraduate courses with literature-driven discussions typical of graduate courses. As a capstone course, one goal of this course is to integrate knowledge from previous coursework in physiology, cell and molecular biology,…

The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed many aspects of our world including the way we teach chemistry. Our emergence from the pandemic provides an opportunity for deep reflection and intentional action about what we teach, and why, as well as how we facilitate student learning. Focusing on foundational postsecondary chemistry courses, we…

Many arts-focused colleges and universities in the United States offer their undergraduate students coursework in science. To better understand the delivery of science education at this type of institution, this article surveys the science programs of forty-one arts-oriented schools. The findings suggest that most science programs are located in…

Communication skills are one of five nationally recognised learning outcomes for an Australian Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree. Previous evidence indicates that communication skills taught in Australian undergraduate science degrees are not developed sufficiently to meet the requirements of the modern-day workplace--a problem faced in the UK and…

We explain the process used at Kean University (New Jersey) to create an innovative undergraduate degree program in sustainability science. This interdisciplinary program provides students with the strong science background necessary to understand and address the opportunities associated with sustainability. We articulate seven steps taken during…

Many basic scientists including anatomists are currently involved in decisions related to revisions of the undergraduate medical curriculum. Integration is a common theme in many of these decisions. As described by Harden, integration can occur along a multistep continuum from independent, discipline-based courses to a completely interdisciplinary…

"Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education" outlined five core concepts intended to guide undergraduate biology education: 1) evolution; 2) structure and function; 3) information flow, exchange, and storage; 4) pathways and transformations of energy and matter; and 5) systems. We have taken these general recommendations and…

This article discusses the key components of a reform-based introductory undergraduate environmental science course for nonscience majors and elementary teacher candidates as well as the impact of such components on the participants. The main goals for the course were to actively engage the students in their learning and, in doing so, to enhance…