We introduce biology to the artist's design tool, the storyboard. This versatile organizing and visualizing artistic platform is introduced into the biology classroom to aid in an inventive and focused discovery process. Almost all biological concepts are dynamic, and storyboards offer biology, lecture, wet and computational labs, flexibility, inventiveness, and an opportunity for students to slow down the so-called steps of biological processes and moderate their observations. Storyboarding is a thoughtful and reflective discovery device with enormous potential to break with traditional biology classroom experiences and return to the root of the educational process: storytelling. It will encourage teachers to embark on the remodeling of the biological curriculum with specific technical skills that students and teachers should consider developing to make the STEAM experience tailored to the uniqueness of biological systems. Storyboards offer hands-on, illustrative, and interactive conversations about biology concepts. They are an “unplugged” and contemplative experiences, organizing frameworks for personal expression focused on biological wonders.

Evidence from isotopes other than radiocarbon shows that dinosaur fossils are millions of years old. Despite that, bone mineral from Mesozoic dinosaur fossils yields a falsely young radiocarbon “date” of less than 50,000 years, due to its accumulation of new radiocarbon via recrystallization. Similarly, the so-called collagen fraction of Mesozoic fossil bone (actually the total organic fraction) yields a falsely young “date,” due to the presence of organic contaminants, including glue that is added during fossil excavation. The contaminants are responsible for the falsely young radiocarbon “date.” That problem can be overcome by the HYP method: subjecting only the hydroxyproline (the part of the “collagen” fraction that is specific to collagen) in the “collagen” fraction to radiocarbon dating. Science educators need to be aware of the details of these phenomena, so as to be able to advise students whose acceptance of biological evolution has been challenged by young-Earth creationist arguments that are based on radiocarbon in dinosaur bone “collagen.”

Student populations in higher education are more diverse than ever before. Studies of classroom engagement have repeatedly shown that instructors act on implicit biases and that classroom participation is rarely equitable. What can instructors do to support diverse students, specifically with regard to managing classroom engagement and facilitating equitable participation? The practice of cold-calling—calling on a student who has not volunteered to contribute a response—has previously been suggested to support a number of desirable classroom outcomes. However, cold-calling is increasingly recognized to be a potential source of significant student anxiety, particularly for students already experiencing heightened stress due to stereotype threat or other barriers to learning. As such, the solicitation of random and immediate feedback may actually exacerbate inequities rather than ameliorate them as intended.

Here, we introduce a novel classroom participation approach that we call the warm call. This engagement method provides students with an advance warning, and the opportunity to opt out of sharing in front of the class. We describe two different approaches—the “in-class warm call” and the “before-class warm call”—which can be utilized by instructors in any level or size of class to support equitable student participation while also respecting student autonomy.

Encouraging students to engage in self-driven problem solving early in their educational career is necessary for them to be able to conduct hypothesis-driven research in the future. However, a fundamental obstacle is finding a topic and activity that is both tangible for students to understand and intelligible. Here we present a classroom activity that can be used in middle school, high school, and even undergraduate college settings to engage students in developing their hypotheses surrounding the human skin microbiome. The ability to culture skin bacteria on agar plates and extract potential environmental factors from their own everyday lives make the human skin microbiome a model example for students to develop their own hypotheses about the variability both within and between different bacterial populations. The approaches we use in our activity set the foundations for how instructors can engage their students in hypothesis-drive scientific research.

Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) are one way instructors can increase engagement and learning of material. One of the goals in the report Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: A Call to Action is to increase active learning activities. By implementing a CURE or CURE-type model, instructors provide students with the opportunity to develop a better understanding of science content, to apply what they have learned, and make an impact in real-world science. Our classes replicated a subset of the work being completed in Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique. We had students complete biodiversity surveys through collection and classification of ant species using field and lab techniques. DNA barcoding analyses are commonly used techniques in biology labs worldwide. Polymerase chain reaction and cycle sequencing will be taught to illustrate how the extracted DNA can be amplified at different markers and used to identify species. We utilized the CURE model to have students complete a biodiversity survey of both a southern intermountain-west and a southeastern state through collection, classification, and genotyping and barcoding of ant species.

Teaching ecological concepts and field methods for introductory biology courses can be challenging, especially when class sizes are large and activities or topics depend on environmental conditions that can change dramatically from semester to semester. We provide a laboratory module that can be used throughout the year, where students can explore plant-insect interactions on campus trees in urban environments using nondestructive measures. Students are provided a transparent grid, a measuring tape, and a random selection protocol to estimate gloomy scale (Melanaspis tenebricosa) insect density on preselected Acer rubrum tree trunks. Students are also given a pace-to-plant protocol to evaluate how impervious surfaces around trees in urban environments may be associated with scale insect abundance. This module highlights ecological concepts, such as population dynamics, species interactions, competition, and food webs, among others. Through this module, students also learn skills in ecological field sampling techniques, particularly how to randomly sample, how to estimate insect abundance, and how to use observation skills to inform scientific inquiry.

Creating a model and foldable to represent the cell cycle encourages higher-level thinking and promotes differentiated learning. Such activities provide additional “hands-on” means to reinforce teacher-led learning of the cell cycle, allowing project-based learning activities to help students visualize the cell cycle process and reflect on its significance. This activity is compatible with universal design for learning. This article describes project implementation, preactivity questions, materials needed, and postactivity reflection. Students may work on this activity online or in person, as the activity requires inexpensive commonly found materials. Students work at their own pace and abilities, as teachers guide them through the concepts, clarify confusion, and enrich their learning.

Understanding the structural and functional relationships of proteins is an important concept of biology. Therefore, we had Gordon State College students in the biochemistry class of spring 2019 apply and evaluate a hands-on bioinformatics activity, using the free bioinformatics program, RasMol. This module was designed to help students understand the relationships of a protein to a specific disease, and in this paper, we have chosen to discuss apolipoprotein E (APOE) relationships to Alzheimer's disease since some of the students had an interest in neurobiochemistry.

During the learning module, students were asked to identify structural differences among the APOE isoforms. Overall, 20 out of 27 students (74.1%) evaluated the instructional value of the RasMol program positively after being surveyed. Student feedback also suggested they learned more about the molecular structure of APOE using RasMol. Therefore, utilization of free computer bioinformatics activities encourages students to apply logical, real-world solutions to biological problems.

As a result of completing weekly coloring assignments, students enrolled in our Anatomy & Physiology I course significantly outperformed their previous-semester counterparts on the course's midterm final laboratory practical exams. Qualitative feedback from students suggests that students found the coloring assignments created a positive and relaxing atmosphere for the studying of anatomy. Overall coloring assignments increased student performance in this course.