Plastic recycling has gained increasing attention due to the negative impacts of improper plastic waste management and its end-of-life outcomes. Despite growing research and educational efforts on sustainability, the integration of community service into student learning experiences remains limited. To address this gap and promote sustainable…

Course based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) enable students to connect theoretical coursework to the real-world application of scientific research, broadly increasing the accessibility of research to students. Similarly, service-learning courses connect undergraduate students to their surrounding communities by anchoring a component of…

Existing research primarily examines the impact of structured, credit-bearing service learning in undergraduate chemistry, leaving the potential contributions of co-curricular service learning and its lasting influence on chemistry graduates underexplored. Therefore, this mixed-methods study aimed to assess the lasting impact of co-curricular…

A semester-long group project implementing service-learning was designed and executed in the first semester of a two-semester-long biochemistry lecture sequence. The project required students to partner with the local public library to design and implement an interactive demonstration, either in person or in virtual format, for young children who…

Historically, high levels of self-reported stress, anxiety, and depression are quite common among STEM students. Unfortunately, after multiple semesters of disrupted education due to COVID-19, these mental struggles among students, especially first-year (freshmen) undergraduate engineering students, have only been exacerbated. To mitigate these…

Chemistry curricula have been severely impacted by social distancing, the need for hybrid and remote learning, and the reduction of resources that many institutions have encountered since the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak. Educators have had to be extremely creative and innovative with their pedagogical approaches in order to offer a quality…

The tribal communities in South India, especially those in the Wayanad region in the proximity of Kerala state, have low literacy rates and occupy a socio-culturally marginalized status among various demographic clusters in India. The pedagogies employed through mainstream schooling do not appeal to the students in the tribal community, resulting…

Community-based learning (CBL), also known as service learning (SL), provides students with an active and meaningful learning environment and has been studied in STEM courses for several decades. Chemistry for the Community is a novel chemistry curriculum that weaves service-learning projects throughout multiple courses, including gateway courses,…

Service-learning methodology makes a connection between student classroom learning and the application of knowledge to solve community needs. The present study was carried out with the Universidad Autónoma de Occidente (Colombia) community by environmental engineering students enrolled in a Chemistry 2 course. The students helped the Universidad…

A service-learning project was completed in both a senior and sophomore-level analytical chemistry course. Both projects took place at a local wetland managed by a nonprofit volunteer group. The two classes performed an in-depth water quality analysis and soil/sediment extractions examining the spatial variation of nutrients. The senior-level…

Service learning is a community-based educational approach where college students are connected to academic content through active participation in planned community experiences. Therefore, service learning is the form of civic engagement that we have used to connect Chemistry undergraduate students with K-12 students, teachers, and parents in our…

There is a growing need for workers with STEM-aligned training in the modern global economy, but a paucity of workers to fill these positions. One important contributor to this issue is low student persistence in STEM. Nontraditional science courses that utilize more active-participation and learning are attractive as tools to increase student…

An environmental chemistry service-learning project was implemented by Greenville University in coordination with the local county health department to test the quality of well water for residents in a five-county region of southern Illinois. Well owners attended a student run well water testing "kickoff meeting", received testing kits,…

A service learning course has been developed through which undergraduate science students create problem-based learning materials for use in high school science classes. Undergraduate students research active learning pedagogies with a specific focus on problem-based learning, create original materials to be used in grades 11 and 12 chemistry and…

A service-learning course at a midsized Midwestern research university was modified over a period of six years to integrate best-practice pedagogies that have been shown to increase civic engagement by students. Best-practice pedagogies included regular interaction with community partner(s), significant time spent on the service activity, and…