Cookbook-style laboratories (labs), where students follow recipes and confirm known results are common, yet years of science teaching and learning research indicate they do not help college students develop the habits of mind and skills of a scientist. We describe the rationale, challenges, and initial changes made in our teaching and learning lab…

This article describes the implementation of a student-generated open educational resource project into a majors' organic chemistry laboratory. This scaffolded semester-long project was organized into six phases and designed to promote the goals of teaching students about both green chemistry and real-life applications of the reactions covered in…

A physics laboratory instructor used action research to effectively implement a 5E instructional approach, which incorporated scientific practices. The instructor explored how to integrate the instructional approach into practice, challenges present in the implementation, and students' learning experiences. The data were collected during three…

Undergraduate students are increasingly aware of complex global challenges and have a strong desire to take action and create change. Course-based undergraduate research experiences can offer a wide range of students the opportunity to gain skills needed to address these challenges. At a small liberal arts college in New England, we developed the…

We describe a hands-on, collaborative activity designed to illustrate general properties of evolution, provide practice for quantitative skills, promote creativity and collaboration, and enable student self-assessment of learning. During the activity, teams construct bridges using common office supplies. The best-performing bridge becomes the…

This article presents the combination of three enhanced educational approaches for training future scientists. These methods incorporate skills generally not introduced in the freshman year: student-led blackboard introductions; the writing of scientific papers; and the design, execution, and presentation of an independent lab module. We tested…

At Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, the second-semester general chemistry course for chemistry majors is the equivalent of an analytical laboratory course. The experiments in the course are classified as classical, discovery, or instrumental on the basis of their structure and purpose. To investigate students' perceptions of learning through…

There is a continuing need for engaging inquiry-based laboratory experiences for advanced high school and undergraduate biology courses. The authors describe a guided-inquiry exercise investigating the pH-dependence of lactase enzyme that uses an inexpensive, wide-range buffering system, lactase dietary supplement, over-the-counter glucose test…

Students need to reflect on the practice of science to fully understand the nature of science (NOS), which is an important component of scientific literacy. In this paper, the authors describe how to implement an explicit and reflective pedagogy in college science laboratories and share examples from their implementation in a multiple-section…

The authors engaged in an education experiment to determine if the integration of lab and lecture activities in zoology and botany proved beneficial to student learning and motivation toward biology. Their results revealed that this strategy positively influenced students' academic achievement, conceptual understanding, and ability to apply…