Welcome to our first online survey. We call our surveys “Where Are We?” because they are designed to provide us all with a sense of where we stand as a community. This first survey focuses on teaching evolution.
The process is simple. You respond to a series of 10 questions (it should only take about 5 minutes). We will compile the data and share it back to the community for discussion. No individual data will be shared but we can all learn something in the process.
The “Where Are We? Evolution Survey” will be open until March 16th and then we will post a new survey and begin looking at the evolution data.
We hope you will join us – because it won’t work without you. Please feel free to comment on the process, suggest topics for future surveys and provide feedback in the comment space at the bottom of the page.
cforms contact form by delicious:days
BioQUEST has had the pleasure of collaborating with many interesting projects over its 20+ year history. We are developing a series of Partner Project Profiles to share some of that richness with the broader community. For this profile we spoke with Judy Scotchmoor (Project coordinator), and Anna Thanukos (Project assistant and author) of Understanding Science. This profile interview was conducted via e-mail over several days in February 2009.
In a nutshell, what is Understanding Science and why should faculty teaching undergraduate biology be aware of it?
Understanding Science is a fun and freely accessible online resource that communicates what science is and how science really works. In addition to basic content on these topics, we provide tools and strategies for teachers at all grade levels to reinforce the nature of science throughout their science teaching. Research suggests that even college students fail to understand basic characteristics of the nature and process of science. The Understanding Science website can help undergraduate faculty better prepare their students to become scientifically-informed decision makers, more thoughtful scientists, and pro-science citizens who view science as an exciting, interesting, and inherently valuable human endeavor. We have an undergraduate teachers’ lounge that provides many tools to help faculty with this effort.
Can you identify 1 or 2 specific resources that are popular or that you would recommend to faculty teaching introductory biology?
Ahhh… that one is super easy! Understanding Science has developed a Teachers’ Lounge for each grade span, including
one for undergraduate faculty. There, faculty will find a growing number of resources. We recommend several introductory activities that can set the tone for the semester by presenting an accurate and engaging perspective on what science is really about:
- Mystery boxes: Uncertainty and collaboration Students manipulate sealed “mystery” boxes and attempt to determine the inner structure of the boxes, which contain a moving ball and a fixed barrier or two. The nature and sources of uncertainty inherent in the process of problem-solving are experienced. The uncertainty of the conclusions is reduced by student collaboration.
- How scientific is it? (50kb pdf) Students are given six knowledge statements and asked to rank them according to how scientific they feel the statements are. A group discussion ensues. This activity is adapted from Scharmann et al. 2005.
- Amazon fly This short activity quickly engages the participants in the process of developing testable hypotheses. Students come up with multiple hypotheses to explain a set of observations and figure out how to test these hypotheses. The activity is appropriate for small or large group discussion that could take place during a lecture.
Where do you get your material? How can faculty help out or provide input?
Our text and graphics are all original. We have an extraordinary team: Anna Thanukos, primary author; Josh Frankel, webmaster (and cartoonist); and Dave Smith (graphic artist). However, the determination of WHAT to include has been the result of in depth communication with all members of our
Advisory Boards. Our advisors have reviewed and re-reviewed each word and image included. This has been a highly collaborative effort! Now we are adding additional materials that include profiles, case studies, and teaching resources. We welcome contributions from others and suggestions for other resources that would be useful! As for input, we are very interested in finding out how the resources are being used and how they can be improved, so any feedback would be terrific. You can contact us directly or
leave a suggestion on our website.
You haven’t mentioned the Science Flowchart. I think the BioQUEST Community is going to be very interested in it. Can you say something about it?
The Science Flowchart is a new, and much more accurate, way to represent the process of science than the usual presentation of the 5-step Scientific Method. You can explore an
interactive version of the flowchart and access
multiple versions of the flowchart to support your teaching. The Science Flowchart is helpful in conveying the true process of science because it emphasizes science’s nonlinearity, the unpredictability of scientific investigations, the role of the scientific community, and the benefits that scientific knowledge can offer us. Not only is the Science Flowchart a more accurate representation of the process of science, it’s much more exciting too! We think that students will be inspired (and perhaps surprised) by the flexibility of the process of science and the role that creativity plays in science.
Who should folks contact if they have comments, questions or suggestions?
Please feel free to contact:
Editor’s Note:
I really appreciate Judy and Anna taking the time to do this interview. After their enormous success with
Understanding Evolution it was exciting to see the University of California Museum of Paleontology receive National Science Foundation support to take on the nature of science. I was excited to be asked to play a role on their advisory board and it has been a great experience. Their
Undergraduate Faculty Lounge is just getting off the ground, but I think it can play an important role in how we explicitly address scientific processes in our classrooms and labs. I’m a big fan of the poster sized version of the science flowchart which you can download
here.
If you have suggestions for projects that we should profile or other comments please add them below or send them via email to
bioquest@beloit.edu.
Tony Weisstein (Truman State University) just returned from the IUBS BioEd 2009 meeting in New Zealand and shares his take on the meeting in this post. The meeting had significant BioQUEST representation with John Jungck (Beloit College) and Pete Lockhart (Massey University) co-chairing the meeting, Ethel Stanley (Beloit College) and Tony leading sessions.
A Report from BioEd 2009
The International Union of Biological Sciences’ annual educational meeting, BioEd 2009, was held in Christchurch, New Zealand, from Feb. 12-15. These dates were chosen to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth, and 2009 also marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species. The conference’s theme, Evolution in Action, was thus highly appropriate.
Caption: The All Blacks, New Zealand’s national rugby team, performing a haka. Credit: Murrayfield7
The conference opened with a powhiri, a traditional Maori welcome featuring a ritual challenge, singing, and feats of agility. Several brave participants also volunteered to take part in a haka or posture dance, with greatly entertaining results. After cutting a birthday cake and pulling crackers for Darwin, participants had the opportunity to see the premiere of the play “Collapsing Creation,” about the challenges Darwin faced in publishing his theory.
Conference participants represented a unique balance between evolution research and teaching: high school biology teachers comprised about 25% of the participants. Sessions on preparing teachers for evolution education and Darwinian medicine helped bridge this divide, interweaving insights from current research with new pedagogical strategies. For example, an overview of human settlement patterns in the Pacific based on genetic and archeological data (Elizabeth Matisoo-Smith, Allan Wilson Centre, New Zealand) might be followed by a lesson plan for speciation in which students conduct experiments that directly challenge their own naïve views of unchanging species (Lee Traynor, Leibniz University, Germany). This mix of topics led to some fascinating teatime and dinner discussions on methods for bringing current research into the classroom and engaging students in active and collaborative learning.
Caption: Pete Lockhart, Ethel Stanley, Tony Weisstein and Holly Gaff (Old Dominion University) pose with the Darwin Cake. Credit: John R. Jungck.
The four plenary lectures were also well chosen to span a diversity of topics while representing the organization’s international character. Presentations included Darwin’s systematics work on barnacles (John Buckenridge, RMIT University, Australia), strategies for adapting primary literature for classroom use (Anat Yarden, Weizmann Institute, Israel), evolution education and the nature of science (Douglas Futuyma, SUNY, USA), and sexual selection in the evolution of human mating systems (Alan Dixson, Victoria University, New Zealand). The conference wrapped up with the play “Unnatural Selection”, performed by four very talented New Zealand high school students, and a preview of October’s IUBS meetings in Cape Town, South Africa.
Several high school teachers in attendance mentioned how much they enjoyed the opportunity for in-depth conversations with researchers, and many research-oriented participants equally appreciated the ideas for new teaching strategies. In response to this demand, the organizers established a blog to help maintain the collaborations begun at the conference. The conference also highlighted one other challenge common to many international societies, including SMB: the language barrier. The IUBS has taken an excellent first step by linking their website and associated materials to a web-based translator. Given the international nature of such conferences, any additional strategies for facilitating multilingual presentations could greatly enhance the experience for speakers and participants alike.
Dr. Anton E. Weisstein
Biology Department
Truman State University
weisstae@truman.edu
http://www2.truman.edu/~weisstae/
Editor’s Note:
Thanks to Tony for sharing this meeting wrap-up. The following links have more information:
BioEd 2009 – the meeting website.
The Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Ecology & Evolution – hosted meeting (they will have links to the meeting resources posted soon).
The International Union of Biological Sciences (IUBS) – sponsored and organized meeting. IUBS is a non-governmental, non-profit organization, established in 1919 that promotes international and interdisciplinary cooperation in biological sciences research.
This report was originally written for publication in the Society of Mathematical Biology Newsletter edited by Holly Gaff. Thanks to Tony and Holly for making it available for posting here as well.
You can find our original posting on the meeting here.
Spring is rapidly approaching which means it must be time to register for the BioQUEST 2010 Faculty Workshop at Beloit College this June 12-18. We will tackle current global health issues and consider the impacts of global warming on these issues. Visualizing statistics with Gapminder and WorldMapper and an introduction to Investigations in Human Biology and Global Health (2010) will be featured.
Faculty participants spend time together – and importantly – work together on curricular concerns that are mutually compelling. We consider this intense summer experience an unique opportunity for you to explore contemporary problems in biology that you can introduce into your own classroom, laboratory, field or computational experiences. You will have an extended opportunity to collaborate with undergraduate science educators and researchers. Several projects started at a BQ summer workshops are ongoing years later.
Phase I
During this two day phase, we will collaboratively explore data, tools, and resources focused on global health curricula. Based on these experiences, groups of participants will share their extended work from one or more sessions on Tuesday after dinner.
Phase II
During the second phase of the workshop, participants take on the role of adopters, adapters and reviewers to consider implementing investigative global health approaches in their own courses. Small groups will share their curricular modules on Friday.
To learn more about the schedule, travel and housing, or featured speakers, please visit our site at http://bioquest.org/summer2010 .
We are pleased to announce a recently funded collaboration between BioQUEST and a host of Digital Library, Professional Society and Community College Partners. The Cyberlearning at Community Colleges (C3) Project is a 3-year effort to build a community of biology faculty who are actively exploring innovative uses of digital library materials, networked computing and communications technologies, and e-science resources.
The bulk of the project funding will support a series of face-to-face workshops for community college biologists. These meetings will be associated with the annual meetings of the C3 Scientific and Teaching Societies which include:
- National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT) annual meeting;
- American Society for Microbiology Conference on Undergraduate Education (ASMCUE);
- Human Anatomy and Physiology Society (HAPS) annual meeting;
- The BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium summer faculty development workshop; and,
- The Botanical Society of America (BSA) annual meeting.
The project activities are centered around an online community at c3cyberlearning.ning.com. These resources are open to all interested biology educators and we encourage you to visit and have a look around.
Regional teachers and IUBS participants explored investigative cases and collaborative activities featuring modeling and simulation in a
BioEd Workshop October 14th, 2009.
Margaret Waterman, John R. Jungck and Ethel Stanley encouraged participants to relate the science in the classroom to the real world experience of their students. Participants engaged in collaborative investigation of a variety of contemporary topics from South Africa’s apple production and water footprint to the modeling of DNA and predator-prey relationships with everyday materials.
Pearson Benjamin Cummings generously provided copies of Biological Inquiry: A Workbook of Investigative Cases to all workshop participants as well as IUBS members and University of Western Cape faculty interested in investigative cases.
Note: New IUBS Executive Committee
John R. Jungck and Lorna Holtman were elected to new positions as Vice President and Committee Member respectively on the IUBS Executive Committee at the 30th General Assembly in Cape Town. Congratulations to you both!
If you look at the BioQUEST calendar, you will see an array of undergraduate faculty workshops and some K-12 teacher and student workshops. Did you know that you can access the presentation materials, resources, and participant projects from BioQUEST workshops over the past four years? BioQUEST workshops are associated with specific disciplinary or pedagogical content and are easy to find by clicking on the calendar links.
BioQUEST is committed to the support of open community resources in science education. This means that any BioQUEST site visitor can access curricular materials from our extensive collection of downloadable resources as well as the presentations and resources from our faculty workshops.
Visit the selected workshop sites below to view the presentations and workshop resources by staff as well as participant-generated curricular materials.
Please continue reading for information on the following events and opportunities:
- ASM/JGI Bioinformatics Institute: Incorporating Bioinformatics Research in Undergraduate Education
- Science Faculty with Education Specialties Project
- Workshops on Active Learning with Video Analysis
- Live Webcast of “Evolution in Extreme Environments” Symposium
This information is being provided through the BioQUEST blog but you should contact the individual projects (see embedded links below) for additional information.
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ASM/JGI Bioinformatics Institute: Incorporating Bioinformatics Research in Undergraduate Education
Washington, DC, March 10-13, 2010
Application Deadline: November 15, 2009
Are you thinking about introducing bioinformatics into your curriculum?
At the ASM/JGI Bioinformatics Institute you will:
- LEARN to understand, interpret, and use molecular sequence information to solve problems and effectively teach it to your students.
- START to understand the underpinnings of BLAST – how the program works, and how to incorporate it.
- DISCOVER tools involved in weak-pattern searches and other protein analysis tools, comparative genomics, and evolutionary analysis.
- CONNECT to other faculty who are using bioinformatics in their classrooms.
For more information visit
http://www.facultyprograms.org/page02a.shtml
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Science Faculty with Education Specialties Project
We are a group of Science Faculty with Education Specialties (SFES) interested in identifying other SFES across the nation. While all college and university science faculty are education specialists in some regard, we define SFES here as individuals who either: 1) have been specifically hired in science departments to specialize in science education, OR 2) have transitioned to a role as a science faculty member focused on issues in science education after their initial hire.
If you are an SFES or think you might be an SFES, please complete our brief, 3-5 minute survey at the link below.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/National-SFES-Search
Beyond a national research study of SFES, our long-term goals are to foster a national SFES professional community and to promote cross-disciplinary SFES conversations.
Sincerely,
Seth Bush, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Nancy Pelaez, Purdue University
James Rudd, California State University, Los Angeles
Michael Stevens, California State University, Stanislaus
Kimberly Tanner, San Francisco State University
Kathy Williams, San Diego State University
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Workshops on Active Learning with Video Analysis
January 5-7, 2010 in Orlando, Florida
July 12-16, 2010 in Portland, Oregon
Summer, 2011 at Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY
http://livephoto.rit.edu/workshops/
Video analysis is the use of video as a scientific measurement tool. Students find active learning with video capture and analysis both educational and compelling.
These NSF-funded workshops are for university and college faculty interested in using digital video analysis in student research, lectures, tutorials, homework assignments, and laboratories. They will cover techniques for making measurements in areas such as mechanics, thermodynamics, wave propagation, electricity, magnetism, and optics. Participants can apply these techniques in both chemistry and biology. Curricular materials and video clips will be provided to participants. Follow-up sessions and on-line communication will allow participants to share videos, activities and ideas for teaching.
There will be no tuition or fees for these workshops. Room and board for faculty and instructional staff from US institutions will be provided, and those with demonstrated need who teach under-represented students may apply for partial travel stipends.
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Live Webcast of “Evolution in Extreme Environments” Symposium
Friday, November 13th, from 8:30 am to 12:30 pm, MST
Are you interested in evolution, but unable to attend this year’s National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT) conference in Denver? Would you and your students like to learn more about evolution in “extreme environments”, such as high altitude, in the deep-sea, or in caves? If so, you will be excited to learn that for the first time, the annual NABT Evolution Symposium will be accessible via a free, live webcast on Friday, Nov. 13th from 8:30 am to 12:30 pm, MST.
For full program information, including speaker names, talk titles and times, and the link to view the live webcast, please visit
http://www.nescent.org/NABT09Webcast.php
In addition, all of the talks will be recorded and placed on NESCent’s website for free access after the conference.
Judy Scotchmoor – Project Manager, 
Anna Thanukos – Project Assistant, 
