In efforts to develop a unique pedagogy for underrepresented high school and undergraduate students, we developed a pilot study to determine the effectiveness of vertically integrating STEM research education from high school students through Ph.D. candidates. The interdisciplinary research project's overarching goal is to assess the impact of environmental pollutants (specifically, platinum group elements found in road dust) on eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells and develop computational models to predict the outcomes of exposure. Ultimately, the project involves elements of fate and transport of platinum group elements in soil, water, and air and their impacts on environmental microbiology, eukaryotic cell signaling, and environmental computational modeling. Our vertically integrated and aligned mentorship model paired high school students with undergraduates, M.S. students, and Ph.D. students in various laboratories. To complement their laboratory research exposure, students also attended professional development seminars on résumé preparation, literature mining/searching, preparation of manuscripts, presentation of data, and critical reading of peerreviewed articles. Our pilot study was very successful in exposing future STEM workers (high school students and college undergraduates) to meaningful research experiences that they translated into seven poster and oral presentations, three review articles (in preparation), three journal articles, and improved attitudes toward STEM careers.

Active-learning experiences — in classrooms, laboratories, and outside of courses — are highly valued components of preparing undergraduates to become biologists. We characterized the educational opportunities available to students in the biological sciences at colleges and universities within the eastern Great Lakes region and student perceptions of a variety of opportunities. We surveyed biology departments at 33 institutions to determine the availability of and participation in educational travel, internships, laboratories, skill development, and undergraduate research involvement. There was variation in the availability of internships, the types of skill development and educational travel offered, and the numbers of labs required in different biology curricula. Undergraduate research was offered at all institutions, and most researchactive students presented results at least locally. Most colleges and universities offer a wide range of educational experiences and opportunities that complement traditional biology curricula and that are valued by students. Because fewer than half of the students took advantage of most of these experiences, schools still have the opportunity to increase their value in undergraduate education through increased student participation.

Many recommendations for improving teaching are valid and important but may be prohibitively challenging for instructors. I describe 10 teaching techniques — “tweaks” — that are more easily implemented, and evidence of their value for increasing student engagement and learning: (1) Have a class outline visible at all times. (2) Use hand-written PowerPoint slides. (3) Help your students encode and review more complete notes. (4) Use in-class exercises that require commitment. (5) Incorporate “transfer” questions. (6) Focus on misconceptions. (7) Include photos that inspire and provoke. (8) Create the right test and teach to it. (9) Incorporate self-disclosure. (10) Reinforce the “take-home messages.”

Undergraduates in ecology and conservation biology courses often lack a clear understanding of how to do fieldwork and utilize data analysis to answer complex questions. This is unfortunate, because with proper training these students could identify and address some of today's most pressing environmental issues. I present a simple, problem-based learning activity that provides students a new approach to understanding two important topics in the environmental sciences — how biodiversity is distributed across landscapes and how habitat loss can affect this biodiversity. This activity helps students explore foundational concepts in biology, enables them to collect data in a simplistic field setting, and introduces them to statistical analyses and modeling. In addition, it also teaches students how to ask questions, synthesize data, and address an issue using the same approaches that conservation practitioners utilize in the real world.

Efforts to reform science education focus on implementing constructivist pedagogy to engage students in scientific practices, promote critical thinking, and provide students with relevant research experiences. In this spirit, this article presents authentic, inquiry-based activities utilizing the real-world bioscience behind wastewater treatment. The activities begin with a tour of a wastewater treatment facility, followed by a guided inquiry activity in which students enumerate E. coli levels from wastewater samples collected from different steps of the treatment process. Students then participate in an open-inquiry experiment to test a unique hypothesis. Learning about wastewater treatment introduces students to important biology content such as bioremediation, microbiology, and nutrient cycling. Additionally, students engage in science practices such as inquiry and constructing evidence-based explanations.

Pressing concerns about sustainability and the state of the environment amplify the need to teach students about the connections between ecosystem health, toxicology, and human health. Additionally, the Next Generation Science Standards call for three-dimensional science learning, which integrates disciplinary core ideas, scientific practices, and crosscutting concepts. The Bio Bay Game is a way to teach students about the biomagnification of toxicants across trophic levels while engaging them in three-dimensional learning. In the game, the class models the biomagnification of mercury in a simple aquatic food chain as they play the roles of anchovies, tuna, and humans. While playing, the class generates data, which they analyze after the game to graphically visualize the buildup of toxicants. Students also read and discuss two articles that draw connections to a real-world case. The activity ends with students applying their understanding to evaluate the game as a model of biomagnification. Throughout the activity, students practice modeling and data analysis and engage with the crosscutting concepts of patterns and cause and effect to develop an understanding of core ideas about the connections between humans and the environment.

The current reform in U.S. science education calls for the integration of three dimensions of science learning in classroom teaching and learning: Science and Engineering Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Disciplinary Core Ideas. While the Next Generation Science Standards provide flexibility in how curriculum and instruction are structured to meet learning goals, there are few examples of existing curricula that portray the integration of these dimensions as “three-dimensional learning.” Here, we describe a collaborative board game about honey bees that incorporates scientific evidence on how genetic and environmental factors influence variations of traits and social behavior and requires students to collaboratively examine and use a system model. Furthermore, we show how students used and evaluated the game as a model in authentic classroom settings.

Building on other studies and reports, we describe an educational laboratory exercise in which students analyze the movement of the ciliated protozoan Tetrahymena thermophila, using free video-capture and image-analysis software (ImageJ), along with a relatively inexpensive ($45–70) digital microscope camera that is USB 2.0 compatible. Specifically, students record Tetrahymena activity under different control and test conditions, and they later use ImageJ to analyze the movement patterns. While this technique is demonstrated to show how methanol affects Tetrahymena behavior, students can use the approach to examine activity under a variety of circumstances, enabling them to conduct their own inquiry-based experiments in lab or as part of a larger independent research project.

Student motivation in class is extremely important because it may lead to a successful learning experience, followed by academic accomplishment. As a strategy to motivate undergraduate students in a microbiology course, we established an awards system named the “Gold, Silver, and Bronze Petri Dish Awards in Microbiology.” The awards system was either offered or not to a group of students (N = 34 for both cohorts). Students who had the opportunity to receive an award obtained higher grades than those for whom the awards system was not implemented (P < 0.01). Course evaluations for the teachers who used the awards system were also higher. The awards system fostered learning of microbiology by undergraduate students.

Like a fissionable isotope, knowledge has a half-life. Fortunately, teachers can craft information in ways that can change the nuclear heart of subject matter to ensure interest, linkage, and retention, all through the telling of a good story. Taking students' existing knowledge and background into account to carefully craft appropriate analogy-integrated stories, key concepts and information can be rendered familiar, accessible, engaging, and enjoyable. “The Marvels of the (Squabbling) Cell” is an example story that employs anthropomorphosis to convey general cell biology in a lighthearted manner in which personal experience and social rules enable a deeper understanding of complex biological subject matter. Equally important, the story lives in students as a conceptual landmark that remains in view during instruction.

In this inquiry activity, community-level physiological profiling (CLPP) with EcoPlates is described to quantitatively depict the community of microorganisms situated in a natural environment. Students can develop their own hypotheses and carry out experimentation about the makeup of microbial communities using EcoPlates. There are many independent variables that can be assessed or changed to determine how environmental differences can play important roles in the types of microorganisms that are found in an environment.