Knowledge of scientific principles and practices is vital to creating informed citizens. At its core, science helps create citizens who question the why and how of things, while also increasing knowledge of the world and beyond. Humans by nature are curious and thrive when they are engaged in learning that relates to real-world situations relevant to their lives. Unfortunately, many scientific courses are based on rote memorization and regurgitation of knowledge taught in a lecture format. Active learning, on the other hand, in co-taught non-majors biology classes has been found to be an effective methodology that allows students to more easily understand presented concepts. This paper will detail activities and student data for an elective interdisciplinary non-majors biology course taught at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. Titled “The Visual Art of Biology,” this class was a collaboration between the Biology and the Art departments. It was offered in Spring 2022 and had 12 students from various majors, including graphic design, biology–pre-physician assistant, studio art, art education, and business management. The class was structured so students would learn biological concepts and incorporate those ideas into artistic creations. Students learned about the impact of global warming, species invasions, habitat destruction, and biodiversity. In addition, they investigated various materials and ecological systems while considering the potential impact of their own actions when making art. Assessments involved quizzes, exams, reflective essays and research papers to gauge understanding of content and allow instructors real-time feedback. Comments were positive through course evaluations, written emails, and verbal feedback.

Artificial intelligence (AI) encompasses the science and engineering behind creating intelligent machines capable of tasks that typically rely on human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, decision-making, and problem-solving. By analyzing vast amounts of data, identifying patterns, and making predictions that were once impossible, AI has rapidly advanced in recent years. This progress owes much to the availability of extensive data, powerful computing devices, and innovative algorithms. Life sciences explore the study of living organisms and their interactions with the environment. These disciplines seek to unravel the mechanisms of life, enhance human health, and address global challenges such as food security. In this review we investigate the contributions of AI to various domains within life sciences, including drug discovery, genomics, marine biology, and education. Additionally, we address the challenges related to integrating AI into life sciences applications. Furthermore, we reflect on the ethical and social implications of AI deployment, emphasizing the need for responsible and transparent utilization of this powerful technology.

Students enter university programs with the hope of passing courses and eventually graduating with a degree. However, many students experience challenges transitioning into their program and the first year. Some of these challenges may be influenced by their pre-collegiate experiences, as certain students come from under-resourced communities and/or high schools that face challenges of their own. These pre-collegiate experiences are primarily outside the control of students yet can play a part in their college success. Further understanding these predictive factors and their correlation to student success in STEM is of importance in the journey to fix the “leaky STEM pipeline.” This study sought to explore these pre-collegiate factors within the context of biology. Utilizing students at a state university in Massachusetts, a mixed-methods approach was taken to explore the correlation between these factors and success in an introductory biology course. Findings from a linear regression analysis illustrate that a high school's underrepresented minority population may be more of a predictor of success in introductory biology as opposed to socioeconomic categories. Student comments from these schools highlight the diverse challenges faced in these environments. Findings from this study can help guide further studies exploring first-year student experiences in biology.

This article presents an innovative cardiology-focused case study integrated into a high school anatomy and physiology class aimed at addressing the issues of equity and inclusivity in STEM education. Despite efforts to bridge gender and minority gaps in STEM, disparities persist, particularly in specialized fields such as cardiology. These disparities include inequities in patient care, underrepresentation of minority groups and women within the cardiology workforce, and the broader issue of gender and minority imbalances in STEM fields. The curriculum, developed in collaboration with a cardiologist, uses the fictional case of “Grandpa Charles” to engage students in a real-world medical scenario, emphasizing environmental factors affecting community health. By incorporating case-based learning and multimedia resources, the exemplar lesson seeks to deepen student engagement, enhance critical thinking, and foster a comprehensive understanding of scientific concepts within the context of students' lived experiences. This approach demonstrates the impact of community-relevant, professionally informed case studies on elevating academic success and empowering students to apply scientific knowledge to complex societal issues in science education.

Increasingly, the integrative nature of professional biomedical research highlights the importance of bridging computational methods and fields with traditional bench science to leverage both approaches simultaneously in problem-solving. To navigate this integrative landscape and understand the synergistic relationship between wet and dry laboratories, aspiring biomedical researchers should gain exposure to both early in their careers, ideally during high school. This comprehensive framework provides a holistic understanding of how the synergistic approach of computational simulations and bench science contributes to the advancement of biomedical research. Here, we introduce the Metabolic Modeling for Obtaining Real Scientific Skills (MetaFORSS) workshop. Developed by biomedical researchers and implemented in two cohorts of summer high school students, this workshop integrates in silico (metabolic network modeling) and in vitro inquiry within a biological system, specifically bacterial metabolism. MetaFORSS can be implemented in various high school settings, whether as part of the biology course curriculum or as an extracurricular activity within a biology club. What sets MetaFORSS apart is its use of open-source software packages, making it accessible to students from diverse educational backgrounds, enabling them to engage in cutting-edge in silico techniques and understand the experimental validation process in a biomedical laboratory setting. In conclusion, MetaFORSS serves as a powerful introduction to integrative science and professional biomedical research for high school students, equipping them with the skills and knowledge necessary for success in the dynamic field of biomedical research.

Citizen science offers a real-world opportunity for students to engage in the practice of science. We present a semester-long birdwatching project for first-year biology students with Project FeederWatch (PFW) that enables students to make meaningful contributions to a larger research project, while gaining valuable experience in data collection and analysis, hypothesis generation, and communication of results. The project consists of five components that students must complete, each with multiple sequenced assignments, with most assignments graded for satisfactory completion before progressing in the project. This mastery-based framework allows students to learn as they progress through the project, while providing a positive experience and building student confidence. Reflection responses show that students genuinely enjoy the project, gain valuable insights into experimental design and often express a desire to continue to birdwatch on their own. The project could also be adapted for upper-level biology courses with more experienced students or for high school courses with a focus on basic skills.

Bioacoustics is uniquely suited as a tool for teachers and students to build high-quality, open-ended, inquiry-driven studies. The large-data nature of capturing soundscapes is made simple to work with by elegant programs such as the SoundEcology package in the free software environment “R,” and the data cheap to collect by low-cost audio recorders such as AudioMoths. Here we give an example by working with high school students to calculate acoustic indices, run simple statistical analysis, work with large data files, code, visualize data, and use these skills to answer their own novel scientific questions.

To help students in a college-level cell biology course develop their technical vocabulary and scientific literacy, a series of fill-in-the blank texts were developed based on figures or diagrams taken from the class textbook, Power Point presentations, or the internet. Each figure was followed by an extended paragraph containing 20 to 30 blank spaces and a list of possible terms or phrases that students could use to fill in the blanks. These texts can be used as part of homework assignments, discussions, or exams in face-to-face or online classes. This approach is very flexible and can be adapted for courses in anatomy and physiology, botany and zoology, or ecology and environmental science. The use of these texts is consistent with previous studies that have shown students best master abstract terms when they are presented along with a figure or used in longer sentence frames or written contexts.

Undergraduate biology education introduces students to cladistics and tree-thinking, which is essential to understanding evolution. Groups of organisms can be highlighted within a cladogram to represent meaningful evolutionary units or spurious relationships, and distinguishing between these groupings is an important learning goal. Students often struggle with the abstract ideas of monophyletic, paraphyletic, and polyphyletic groups, and benefit from any tricks to help them understand the underlying concepts. A simple flowchart can help students recognize the difference between mono-, para-, and polyphyletic groups, easing the path toward deeper evolutionary thinking.