Variants in Biology Education: What can we learn from pandemics?

2023年3月23日至25日，第八届生命发现-做科学生物学教育会议(LDC)将在佛罗里达农工大学召开，主题为“生物学教育中的变种：我们能从流行病中学到什么？”本次活动由美国生态学会(ESA)、美国植物学会(BSA)和进化研究学会(SSE)联合举办。如果基于科学的信息得不到理解和/或拒绝，就会对人们的生活和决策产生真正的影响。会议将借鉴可应用于教育学的社会行为研究。会议主题涉及影响教与学的三个关键问题，形成了三个主题：a)适应和教授疾病生态；b)科学错误信息；c)研究创新和职业生涯。这些课程将突出有前景的实践、计划和战略，这些实践、计划和战略可以在课堂上实施，同时促进改善生物教育和职业准备的长期努力。它还将在上一次会议的基础上再接再厉，上一次会议的重点是包容性教育战略，这对吸引理科和非理科专业的学生，特别是代表不足的少数群体至关重要。通过促进STEM和媒体扫盲工具和资源的发现和交流，该活动将使教师能够帮助依赖社交媒体获取信息的一代数字原住民打击虚假信息，并远远超出课堂到学生家中和社区。美国国家科学基金会的资金将支持来自少数族裔服务机构、社区学院和主要是本科院校的组织生物学和环境科学方面资源不足的教师的联系和参与，这些教师经常在美国各地与世隔绝。在新冠肺炎疫情无情地震动世界三年后，这次会议将为教育工作者提供一个论坛，让他们参与基于学科的全国性对话。它对教育的影响也同样深远。会议主办方将利用这次机会，利用亲身经历支持的非常真实的现象，讨论生态学和进化生物学中以前很难教授的关键思想。与此同时，这次会议将为教育工作者提供一个平台，讨论如何教授假新闻和学习真正的科学之间的区别。战略的交流将是有益的，这样教育工作者可能会在不同的社会政治气候中更有效地应对快速发展的科学现象，以及对基于科学的信息更快的“病毒抵抗”。在大流行的影响下，科学和研究方面的创新正在引入新的问题，现在可以提出和回答这些问题。会议将突出新兴的STEM和STEM邻近职业的机会，这些职业受到技术进步的推动，如新的RNA研究提供的那些，以及社会科学的重大发现，这些发现正在动员对全球脆弱性和复原力的新理解。会议还将延续十年前由“本科生物学教育的愿景与变革”(AAAS)推动的教育改革努力，并突出最近的进展，通过欧空局的四维生态教育(4DIE)框架为生态教育提供连贯和现代的方法。NSF IUSE：EHR计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高STEM教育对所有学生的有效性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

From March 23-25, 2023, the 8th Life Discovery – Doing Science Biology Education Conference (LDC) will convene at Florida A&M University on the theme, “Variants in Biology Education: What can we learn from pandemics?” This event is co-organized by the Ecological Society of America (ESA), the Botanical Society of America (BSA), and the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE). There are real impacts on people’s lives and decisions when scientifically based information is not understood and/or rejected. The conference will draw from socio-behavioral research which can be applied to pedagogy. The conference theme wrestles with three key issues impacting teaching and learning which form three thematic tracks: a) adapting to and teaching disease ecology; b) science misinformation, and c) research innovation and careers. These tracks will highlight promising practices, programs, and strategies that can be implemented in the classroom while fostering a longer term effort to improve biology education and career readiness. It will also build on the previous conference which focused on inclusive educational strategies critical to engaging both science and non-science majors, especially underrepresented minority populations. By facilitating discovery and exchange of tools and resources for STEM and media literacy, the event will position faculty to help generations of digital natives who rely on social media for information to combat false information and extend far beyond the classroom to students’ homes and communities. NSF funds will support the connection and participation of under-resourced faculty in organismal biology and environmental sciences from minority-serving institutions, community colleges and primarily undergraduate institutions, who are frequently isolated across the US.The conference will provide a forum for educators to engage in a discipline-based national conversation three years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic inexorably rocked the world. Its impact on education has been no less profound. The conference organizers will take advantage of this opportunity to use very real phenomena backed by lived experience to discuss key ideas in ecology and evolutionary biology that have previously been difficult to teach. At the same time, this conference will provide a platform for educators to discuss approaches to teaching the difference between fake news and learning real science. An exchange of strategies will be beneficial so educators might respond more effectively in different sociopolitical climates to a fast-evolving scientific phenomenon and an even faster “viral resistance” to information based on science. Made visible by the pandemic, innovations in science and research are introducing new questions that can now be asked and answered. The conference will highlight opportunities for emerging STEM and STEM-adjacent careers fueled by technological advancements such as those offered by new RNA research, as well as key findings in the social sciences which are mobilizing new understandings of vulnerability and resilience globally. The conference will also extend education reform efforts propelled by "Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education" (AAAS) a decade ago and highlight recent advances to provide a cohesive and modern approach to ecology education through ESA’s Four-Dimensional Ecology Education (4DEE) framework. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.