The capstone course for many Earth Science programs is a field course. To increase accessibility and to create a substitute in light of the cancellation of in-person courses due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we developed an online introductory field geology course. The course consisted of six different modules. The first was a virtual reality room,…

This paper describes the development of a fully remote upper-class biochemistry lab course. The sudden change to online teaching in the middle of spring semester 2020 had a primarily negative impact on laboratory teaching. These effects were mitigated because the students had done many of the basic hands-on procedures before the switch. A true…

The American Chemical Society holds supporting diverse student populations engaging in chemistry as a core value. We analyzed chemical concept inventory scores from 4,612 students across 12 institutions to determine what inequities in content knowledge existed before and after introductory college chemistry courses. We interpreted our findings…

What and how instructors assess understandably impacts student learning and performance in undergraduate science courses. However, there is limited research on the ways in which assessment practices might be altered to combat inequitable outcomes in these settings. Here we characterize the nature of assessment questions in one second-semester…

STEM graduate education is vitally important in producing the talent needed to fuel our economy and provide solutions for the challenges we face in emerging diseases and climate change. Yet recent research indicates that women and students who identify as members of minority groups traditionally underrepresented in STEM face extraordinary…

Undergraduate physics laboratory curriculum has undergone significant modification in recent decades in response to research and recommendations from educational and professional organizations and stakeholders. These reforms address multiple issues, such as 1) lack of student agency in experimentation, 2) an incomplete framework for student…

Viscous and Coulomb's friction combined contribute to the damping of a pendulum; however, they are usually treated as a silo effect. In this study, we investigate the combination of viscous and Coulomb damping in compound pendulum oscillation, employing two modern instruments that are cheap and handy to quantify the experiments, which are video…

We have implemented at the University of Málaga (Spain) a new course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) to involve undergraduate students of Science in a real-world scientific problem. Within the topic "Let's find acetylcholinesterase inhibitors as new drug candidates for the treatment of Alzheimer's", students have been…

A low-cost simple one-dimensional spring-mass system was constructed to investigate damped oscillations. The suspended mass in the system can move freely inside a cylinder containing a fluid. It provides an in-depth experience for demonstrating various concepts under oscillations. It can be used to probe the magnitude of damping forces in liquids…

A number of areas of difficulty in basic numeracy and mathematical skills were identified, which hinder students' success in a foundational biochemistry course. Many students have difficulty with the concepts of pH and buffers (requiring proficiency with logarithms) and enzyme kinetics (requiring algebraic manipulations and graphing). The…

Puzzles involving infinite networks of resistors are an engaging way for students to explore the idea of infinity and self-similarity in physics. Recently K Atkin has described one such puzzle, alongside a solution based on an equivalent finite network (2022 "Phys. Educ." 57 025015). Here we present a generalisation of this problem which…

Refraction is a foundational concept within introductory physics. Physics students need a deep understanding of refraction, including Snell's Law, in order to progress towards more complex optics topics such as lenses and images. Unfortunately, many physics students obtain only a superficial understanding of refraction. Although many students can…

Recently, the Interactive-Constructive-Active-Passive (ICAP) framework has been gaining increasing prominence in cognitive and learning sciences. The ICAP theory asserts that students learn more deeply when they are cognitively engaged in generative and collaborative learning. Indeed, prior studies have established the value of the ICAP framework…

Organic chemistry is the study of organic compounds containing hydrocarbons and their derivatives. It is similar to inorganic chemistry in terms of the cognitive model. However, the vast number of organic compounds has added to the difficulty in learning organic chemistry with compressed class hours in engineering majors. The integration of the…

Interdisciplinary experiments within chemistry are very important for the improvements in the overall quality of the education received by students. In this work, we describe an interdisciplinary experiment that was successfully completed by undergraduate students. This training integrates multiple disciplines including natural product medicinal…