Microorganisms can be found in every part of the environment. They are found in the air, surfaces of objects, and various other ecosystems. Even our lives cannot be separated from the existence of microorganisms. Microbial communities and their metabolites can have positive and negative impacts. Even the Health sector has evaluated and reviewed…

In the classroom, metabolism is often approached and received as a mundane exercise in memorization. Teaching metabolism also faces the challenge of negative perceptions that can impede learning. We sought to improve the learning experience in an undergraduate lecture course on microbial metabolism by implementing an illustrated story that follows…

Bacteria form an intense portion of reading and learning for students enrolled in microbiology education. As a part of the foundational course outline of bacteriology, bacterial classification is a significant topic of discussion. The purpose of our study was to analyze whether bacterial classification can be taught with a phylogenetic tree…

This paper presents two low-cost hands-on activities designed to enhance student understanding and address the pedagogical challenges faced by microbiology professors in teaching concepts related to cell structure and gene regulation. In the first activity, we used Shrinky Dinks and Jeopardy-style game questions to explore the differences between…

A main goal of academic courses is to help students acquire knowledge and skills that they can transfer to multiple contexts. In this article, we (i) examine students' responses to test question templates (TQTs), a framework intended to facilitate transfer, and (ii) determine whether similar transfer-promoting strategies are commonly embedded in…

Local problems in the surrounding environment can be developed in school learning according to independent curriculum policies so that students are responsive and can play an active role in solving problems, such as those related to viruses and their role. This study aims to determine the symptoms of viral infections in various food and…

The current and ongoing challenges brought on by climate change will require future scientists who have hands-on experience using advanced molecular techniques, can work with large data sets, and can make correlations between metadata and microbial diversity. A course-embedded research project can prepare students to answer complex research…

Advocates for inclusive diversity with equity, access and accountability (IDEAA) are often torn between individual-level change and institutional-level change processes. Similarly, antiracist scholarship spans individual-level and institutional-level efforts towards antiracism. In discipline-based education research (DBER) in microbiology…

Using living organisms in biology education is a common practice that provides students with direct contact with living beings in the classroom. Several benefits and barriers of using organisms in classrooms have been proposed in the literature. Hence, biology teachers should carefully consider the pros and cons of using living organisms, and…

Microbiology as an academic discipline that does not have a long history, but the knowledge accumulated over the past three centuries is rather considerable, and courses in microbiology are commonly taught in colleges and universities throughout the world. In this article, many of the methods that can be used for teaching microbiology in a…

Research and education are two areas often compartmentalised or separated by an abyss, linked in this study by a service-learning methodology, the Small World Initiative project. The programme instruction starts at the university, reaches secondary school and returns to university to complete the research, challenging young students to discover…

An economy that grows is good. Growth in income is certainly good. In general, growth is seen as a good thing. A global pandemic challenges this notion. Let's be careful of what we wish for- especially if growth is "exponential." This article describes exponential growth and doubling time, and shows how these concepts can be related to…

To prepare students to integrate diverse perspectives, colleges nationwide offer a wide range of interdisciplinary learning experiences. Within this educational context, students often need more than exposure to multiple perspectives in order to integrate ideas across disciplines. They benefit from instruction that scaffolds their efforts to…

This dissertation asks how to improve science education and science communication, and suggests that digital storytelling techniques can be used to better engage learners in the process of knowledge making. Digital storytelling refers to both the use of high-quality digital media content as learning materials, and also to the use of social…

Inspired by the positive impact of serious games on science understanding and motivated by personal interests in scientific outreach, we developed "Bacttle," an easy-to-play microbiology board game with adaptive difficulty, targeting any player from 7 years old onward. Bacttle addresses both the lay public and teachers for use in…