Teaching Science with Minnows and Liverworts: Integration of Faculty Research and Science Education

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Biological Sciences (61). This project involves a retooling of an undergraduate curriculum with the goals of increasing scientific literacy by integrating cross-disciplinary faculty research into science education in a small public university. A student-directed open-inquiry (SDOI) master curriculum is being developed and implemented that formally links a series of core courses and integrates molecular biology into a curriculum emphasizing ecology and evolutionary biology (EEB). Within this core, students are building basic scientific knowledge, developing research questions, using information technology resources, forming testable hypotheses, becoming proficient in basic research design, using statistical methods for assessment and interpretation, gaining skill in weighing evidence and synthesizing understandings, and communicating results to broad audiences. The study systems (fish and liverworts) that are being integrated into the core curriculum provide convenient, charismatic models that span the plant-animal spectrum and are highly amenable to the involvement of undergraduates. Students are addressing real-world questions in EEB with state-of-the-art molecular analyses. Assessment of the program includes both formative and summative components and is incorporating university-sanctioned assessment instruments. Engaging and preparing cohorts of trained students is invigorating faculty research programs that in turn are providing future opportunities for infusing research into the core biology curriculum. Two series of SDOI laboratory exercises are being assessed, modified and disseminated. One series includes innovative laboratory experiences in chemical behavioral ecology, and a second series details the integration of molecular techniques into ecology curricula. A controlled study approach is being used to test explicitly the efficacy of SDOI versus guided-inquiry in introductory biology labs.Broader impacts include exposure of over 200 students, from 14 different majors, to an SDOI experience each year in the enhanced core curriculum. Approximately two-thirds of these students are women, a group traditionally underrepresented in ecology and other STEM areas. Results from this study are contributing to the literature on scientific inquiry in undergraduate curricula. Students and faculty are presenting their research in local, regional and national forums, including both scientific and education professional meetings, and participating in professional development workshops for local in-service teachers.