Understanding Koch's postulates, including how they are used to study the spread of disease within a population, is central to the teaching of microbiology. These concepts are often presented and discussed with little or no historical background, and as a result students fail to appreciate how the field has developed from past to present. We designed a lesson based on the story of Typhoid Mary to engage students in the learning and application of Koch's postulates in the field of epidemiology and provide insight into the interplay between scientists and the public as illustrated by this episode. The lesson uses an interrupted story technique in which students watch a documentary about Typhoid Mary, with pauses to discuss the events and engage in a role-play to reenact Mary's trial. The purpose is to improve student understanding of central concepts and to foster a deeper understanding of issues associated with the nature of science (NOS), such as how the process of science is influenced by culture and society (and vice versa). This lesson plan was created for a college-level microbiology course for non-majors, but can be easily modified for use in high school settings.

An international group of biology education researchers offer their views on areas of scholarship that might positively impact our understanding of teaching and learning in biology and potentially inform practices in biology and life science instruction. This article contains a series of essays on topics that include a framework for biology education research, considerations in the preparation of biology teachers, increasing accessibility to biology for all learners, the role and challenges of language in biology teaching, sociocultural issues in biology instruction, and assisting students in coping with scientific innovations. These contributions are framed by a discussion of the value of defining several potential “grand challenges” in biology education.

Throughout global history, various infectious diseases have emerged as particularly relevant within an era. Some examples include the Bubonic plague of the fourteenth century, the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918, the HIV epidemic of the 1980s, and the Zika virus outbreak in 2015–16. These instances of emerging infectious disease represent ideal opportunities for timely, relevant instruction in natural and health science courses through case studies. Such instructional approaches can promote student engagement in the material and encourage application and higher-order thinking. We describe here how the case study approach was utilized to teach students about emerging infectious diseases using the 2014–16 Ebola virus outbreak as the subject of instruction. Results suggest that students completing the case study not only had positive perceptions of the mode of instruction, but also realized learning gains and misconception resolution. These outcomes support the efficacy of case pedagogy as a useful teaching tool in emerging infectious diseases, and augment the paucity of literature examining Ebola virus knowledge and misconceptions among undergraduate students within United States institutions.

The use of Web-based informatics tools such as eBird, iNaturalist, and NatureAtlas that allow anyone to find and share occurrences and observations of organisms in nature could readily be integrated with the time-honored specimen collection and field journaling components of taxon-based natural history courses. We find, however, that fewer than 2% of such courses have used any such tool. Consequently, the far majority of students receive no formal exposure to the 21st-century technologies and concepts that are transforming the data landscapes of the very fields the courses should be preparing them to enter. We conducted a seven-year, empirical assessment of the integration of such technology with coursework, and our results reveal why recognizing and correcting this shortcoming is critical. Our data indicate that such technology can enhance student engagement and student perception of learning, and that its broader integration with coursework could be a boon to regional and global efforts to document and conserve biodiversity. We conclude that the academic community is missing a tremendous opportunity to better engage future biologists and potential citizen-scientists in a critically important, emergent paradigm in biodiversity informatics.

In this article, we describe how to utilize differently colored M&M candies to represent species within a simulated biological community, and obtain population and diversity estimates utilizing Lincoln-Petersen and Shannon-Weaver methods, respectively. Through use of this activity, our students gain a better understanding of mathematical applications in biological research, and are exposed to basic census and community analysis techniques utilized by practicing biologists. Additionally, this activity may be utilized in various instructional situations where, otherwise, it might prove impractical to take students on a fieldtrip to allow practice of these procedures.

In this lesson students will use the Penicillium chrysogenum fungus, which naturally produces the antibiotic penicillin, to investigate the effect of naturally produced antibiotics on bacteria in laboratory cultures. Students co-culture P. chrysogenum with three species of bacteria to observe differences between penicillin-resistant and penicillin-sensitive bacteria. They will normalize fungal spore suspension and bacterial culture concentrations before inoculating cocultures. After bacteria have been exposed to the antibiotic, students will quantify culture density to determine antibiotic effect in liquid culture and on solid media. Students will learn about natural product antibiotics as well as experimental design and application.

Consistent and accurate manipulation of liquids is essential for many biology experiments. Teaching these skills is challenging in the laboratory. I have developed Training Tips, a homemade teaching tool to train students to use micropipettes in the classroom and laboratory. Training Tips provide obvious visual targets that enable inexperienced students to know immediately if they are pipetting accurately.

Changing climate conditions pose challenges for many migratory birds, and their responses to these challenges can depend on their biology. To illustrate these impacts, I developed a board game to help elementary school students understand these challenges. The use of the game provides an opportunity to further discuss changes in phenology, the timing of life cycle events, in response to a changing climate.