Integrating social issues into biology courses may be of particular interest for educators seeking to create inclusive science environments that support diverse populations. This social justice-focused service-learning project extended a partnership between a social justice institute and a nonprofit organization into an undergraduate introductory…

Classrooms were turned upside down amid the global COVID-19 pandemic, which began approximately halfway through the spring 2020 semester. A service-learning project was implemented in my section of a general biology course for majors. With the shutdown of academic institutions and other businesses or government agencies, service was not…

Most introductory courses in environmental science are large, lecture-style general education classes. North Carolina State University's ES 100 is no exception, enrolling between 200 and 300 students and holding class meetings in the campus cinema. A key underlying learning objective, however, is to teach students that science is the pathway to…

This article presents a synopsis of an interdisciplinary literacy-science, cross-country, fully remote service-learning (S-L) project prompted by and executed during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The article shares discussions, analyses, and evaluations from both community partners (staff of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences…

In this article we describe a course on science outreach that was developed as part of our college's goal that all students participate in a meaningful community engagement experience. The Science & Community Engagement course provides a way for students with science or science-related majors to learn how to effectively communicate scientific…

We have discovered a new and formerly unstudied long-term impact of a system-wide research university program that provides opportunities for students to explore secondary school teaching as a potential career. Looking beyond teacher recruitment as the only assessment of success, we have investigated the impact of the program on those who explored…

As our understanding of complex environmental issues increases, institutions of higher education are evolving to develop new learning models that emphasize synthesis across disciplines, concepts, data, and methodologies. To this end, we argue for the implementation of environmental science education at the intersection of systems theory and…

The partnership between science and the environment in service-learning projects helps students to make greater connections to the world around them. Service learning provides many benefits to students, faculty, and communities within the context of a college course. However, to prevent frustration, it is important for faculty members to make a…

There is an urgent need to increase K-12 science knowledge and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) preparedness for college. State and national data suggest a strong correlation between student performance in STEM subjects and student socioeconomic status, race, and ethnicity. Queensborough Community College (QCC) is situated…

This article describes a culminating assignment for students enrolled in a human ecology course in a Masters in Science Education program. The goal of this assignment was for students to use published scientific data to link daily life, human impact, and sustainability to ecological function. This activity required students to consider the…

Research has suggested that a service-learning component can add a powerful dimension to learning course content in a variety of science disciplines, in addition to assisting students in seeing connections between their studies and the world outside the classroom. This article describes a tropical ecology course designed for science preservice…

Research service-learning (RSL) is an emerging pedagogy in which students engage in research within a service-learning context. This approach has great potential to promote science literacy because it teaches students how to use scientific knowledge and scientific ways of thinking in the service of society and helps them to better appreciate the…

At Georgia Southern University (GSU), a regional university of 17,000 students, environmental science is a required introductory course for all students. Consequently, environmental-biology class sizes are large, often approaching 1,000 students each semester in multiple sections of up to 250 students. To improve students' learning and sense of…

At Colorado College, the energy retrofit of a building is used as a service-learning research project to teach physics and chemistry in a variety of courses. In introductory courses for nonscience majors, the project helps students appreciate the scientific method and quantitative reasoning. Within the physical-chemistry course, students see that…

Three local colleges in the Lehigh Valley collaborate on a service-learning project called Brain Awareness Day to enhance neuroscience literacy among the public regarding the functions of the brain and benefits of brain research. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)