Local Tree Mapping: A Collaborative,Place-Based Activity Integrating Science,Technology, Math,and Geography

This inquiry-based activity designed for the fifth through 12th grade allows students to engage in an outdoor, place-based experience, working collaboratively both in groups and as a class to accomplish the class goal of creating a local tree map linked to student-collected data about each tree. During Local Tree Mapping, students explore the local trees in the yard or neighborhood of the school, while learning basic skills in geographical information systems and Microsoft Excel. Through this activity, students gain a deeper understanding of and appreciation for the role of trees within the Earth's ecosystems, as they collect data on tree type, height, diameter, age, and the longitude and latitude of the trees. An extension activity is described in which students can enter their tree data into a carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions reduction calculator to determine how much CO₂ is sequestered by the trees in their research site. Local Tree Mapping provides an opportunity for students to gain inquiry skills in science, mathematics, and geography as they participate firsthand in the collection, analysis, and presentation of real-world data that can be utilized by the local community.     

Leading Students to Investigate Diffusion as a Model of Brine Shrimp Movement

Integrating experimental biology laboratory exercises with mathematical modeling can be an effective tool to enhance mathematical relevance for biologists and to emphasize biological realism for mathematicians. This paper describes a lab project designed for and tested in an undergraduate biomathematics course. In the lab, students follow and track the paths of individual brine shrimp confined in shallow salt water in a Petri dish. Students investigate the question, “Is the movement well characterized as a 2-dimensional random walk?” Through open, but directed discussions, students derive the corresponding partial differential equation, gain an understanding of the solution behavior, and model brine shrimp dispersal under the experimental conditions developed in class. Students use data they collect to estimate a diffusion coefficient, and perform additional experiments of their own design tracking shrimp migration for model validation. We present our teaching philosophy, lecture notes, instructional and lab procedures, and the results of our class-tested experiments so that others can implement this exercise in their classes. Our own experience has led us to appreciate the pedagogical value of allowing students and faculty to grapple with open-ended questions, imperfect data, and the various issues of modeling biological phenomena.     

Guiding STEM graduate students to better speaking skills

Training to enhance the effectiveness of oral presentations is often neglected in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. In this article, we summarize our experience of teaching a semester-long class in speaking skills to STEM graduate students and advocate for the critical importance of these skills to professional success.     

Greenbeards in yeast: an undergraduate laboratory exercise to teach the genetics of cooperation

Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in our understanding of the social behaviour of microbes. Here, we take advantage of these developments to present an undergraduate laboratory exercise that uses the cooperative flocculating behaviour of yeast (Saccharomyces sp.) to introduce the concept of inclusive fitness and teach the genetics of cooperation. Students generate their own data using co-cultures of various yeast strains and perform statistical analyses to test whether kin selection or greenbeard effects determine the cooperative flocculating behaviour. The lab has run successfully for two consecutive years in a second year course with some 1, 200 students per year at the University of Toronto, Canada. We discuss the benefits of using microbes to teach social evolution, describe the set-up and learning outcomes of the laboratory exercise, and then outline possible extension and variants of the lab. In addition to providing students with the opportunity to use a model organism to study social behaviour, students are also taught common laboratory skills, such as replica plating and sterile techniques. Ultimately, while the genetics of cooperation has traditionally been taught through computer simulations and evolutionary games, this exercise demonstrates a way to experimentally introduce the topic.     

The Quantitative Methods Boot Camp: Teaching Quantitative Thinking and Computing Skills to Graduate Students in the Life Sciences

The past decade has seen a rapid increase in the ability of biologists to collect large amounts of data. It is therefore vital that research biologists acquire the necessary skills during their training to visualize, analyze, and interpret such data. To begin to meet this need, we have developed a “boot camp” in quantitative methods for biology graduate students at Harvard Medical School. The goal of this short, intensive course is to enable students to use computational tools to visualize and analyze data, to strengthen their computational thinking skills, and to simulate and thus extend their intuition about the behavior of complex biological systems. The boot camp teaches basic programming using biological examples from statistics, image processing, and data analysis. This integrative approach to teaching programming and quantitative reasoning motivates students’ engagement by demonstrating the relevance of these skills to their work in life science laboratories. Students also have the opportunity to analyze their own data or explore a topic of interest in more detail. The class is taught with a mixture of short lectures, Socratic discussion, and in-class exercises. Students spend approximately 40% of their class time working through both short and long problems. A high instructor-to-student ratio allows students to get assistance or additional challenges when needed, thus enhancing the experience for students at all levels of mastery. Data collected from end-of-course surveys from the last five offerings of the course (between 2012 and 2014) show that students report high learning gains and feel that the course prepares them for solving quantitative and computational problems they will encounter in their research. We outline our course here which, together with the course materials freely available online under a Creative Commons License, should help to facilitate similar efforts by others.This is part of the PLOS Computational Biology Education collection.     

Digital game design-based STEM activity: Biodiversity example

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to design a digital game design-based STEM activity for fifth-grade students learning about endangered organisms and significance of biodiversity for living. This activity was carried out with twenty students in a public school in Eastern Black Sea Region of Turkey during academic year of 2018–2019 spring term. This study planned as eight-lesson time (8?×?40?minutes) and completed at this lesson time. The students were given the digital game design challenge in real-life problem context that has been created based on design-based science learning and for which they shall use their knowledge and skills in each of the STEM disciplines. During this design challenge, students worked like a scientist and an engineer. They carried out scientific research and inquiry process in the science discipline, understood the engineering design process in the engineering discipline, established mathematical relations in the mathematics discipline, learned how to make coding in the technology discipline, and used this knowledge and skills thus acquired in their suggested solutions for the design challenge. They designed a digital game by coding and presented science knowledge and skills that acquired from inquiry process.     

利用评价的导向功能,提高微生物学教学质量

评价是教学管理的重要环节,具有显著的导向作用。在微生物学及实验课程的教学过程中,应重视这种导向功能。在上课之初,明确课程成绩的组成和比例,要求学生在参与课程学习的基础上,拓展知识结构,利用互联网和图书馆资源,撰写一份实验大报告,制作一个课堂展示PPT;实验考试以操作为主,占总成绩的10%,主要考查接种技术、微生物制片技术、染色技术和显微镜油镜的使用技术;期末考试为闭卷笔试,占总成绩的50%;除了基本概念外,主要考查各知识点的融会贯通和分析问题、解决问题的能力。导向的设置为学生系统掌握微生物学知识、全面提升实验操作能力和综合创新能力指明了方向。     

Characterisation of Digestive Enzymes in Freshly Killed Animals

We present an investigation (for A-level biology students and equivalent) into the mechanism of glucose-induced extracellular acidification in unbuffered yeast suspensions. The investigation is designed to enhance understanding of aspects of the A-level curriculum that relate to the phenomenon (notably glucose catabolism) and to develop key skills in scientific enquiry.We demonstrate that glucose-induced extracellular acidification (monitored by pH electrodes linked to a computer) is inhibited by glycolytic and TCA cycle inhibitors. Dimethylsuccinate, which forms succinate after entering cells, also induces acidification that is inhibited by malonate, an inhibitor of succinate oxidation. The yeast plasma membrane has a proton pump that extrudes protons from the cell. However, inhibitors of the pump do not affect glucose-induced acidification during 20 minutes of monitoring pH, indicating that under the experimental conditions employed, the pump does not have a significant role in the process. Taken together, the data indicate that glucose-induced acidification of the medium occurs as a result of its catabolism and subsequent outward diffusion of the CO₂ derived from respiration and/or fermentation. A discussion is presented on how the investigations developed skills of scientific enquiry in undergraduate trainee teachers who carried out some of the experiments and on how the investigations can be used to enhance these skills in A-level students.     

Primary School Teachers’ Assessment Profiles in Mathematics Education

The aim of this study was to contribute to knowledge about classroom assessment by identifying profiles of teachers’ assessment of their students’ understanding of mathematics. For carrying out this study we used data of a nationwide teacher survey (N = 960) in the Netherlands. The data were collected by an online questionnaire. Through exploratory factor analyses the underlying structure of what is measured by this questionnaire was uncovered as consisting of five factors: Goal centeredness of assessment, Authentic nature of assessment, Perceived usefulness of assessment, Diversity of assessment problem format, and Allocated importance of assessing skills and knowledge. By using a latent class analysis four different assessment profiles of teachers were identified: Enthusiastic assessors, Mainstream assessors, Non-enthusiastic assessors, and Alternative assessors. The findings suggest that teachers with particular assessment profiles have qualitatively different assessment practices. The paper concludes with discussing theoretical implications of these assessment profiles and indications these profiles can offer both for designing material for professional development in classroom assessment and for evaluating changes in teachers’ classroom assessment practice.     

Crossing over...Markov meets Mendel

Chromosomal crossover is a biological mechanism to combine parental traits. It is perhaps the first mechanism ever taught in any introductory biology class. The formulation of crossover, and resulting recombination, came about 100 years after Mendel's famous experiments. To a great extent, this formulation is consistent with the basic genetic findings of Mendel. More importantly, it provides a mathematical insight for his two laws (and corrects them). From a mathematical perspective, and while it retains similarities, genetic recombination guarantees diversity so that we do not rapidly converge to the same being. It is this diversity that made the study of biology possible. In particular, the problem of genetic mapping and linkage-one of the first efforts towards a computational approach to biology-relies heavily on the mathematical foundation of crossover and recombination. Nevertheless, as students we often overlook the mathematics of these phenomena. Emphasizing the mathematical aspect of Mendel's laws through crossover and recombination will prepare the students to make an early realization that biology, in addition to being experimental, IS a computational science. This can serve as a first step towards a broader curricular transformation in teaching biological sciences. I will show that a simple and modern treatment of Mendel's laws using a Markov chain will make this step possible, and it will only require basic college-level probability and calculus. My personal teaching experience confirms that students WANT to know Markov chains because they hear about them from bioinformaticists all the time. This entire exposition is based on three homework problems that I designed for a course in computational biology. A typical reader is, therefore, an instructional staff member or a student in a computational field (e.g., computer science, mathematics, statistics, computational biology, bioinformatics). However, other students may easily follow by omitting the mathematically more elaborate parts. I kept those as separate sections in the exposition.     

Effects of Mathematics Anxiety and Mathematical Metacognition on Word Problem Solving in Children with and without Mathematical Learning Difficulties

Mathematics is one of the most objective, logical, and practical academic disciplines. Yet, in addition to cognitive skills, mathematical problem solving also involves affective factors. In the current study, we first investigated effects of mathematics anxiety (MA) and mathematical metacognition on word problem solving (WPS). We tested 224 children (116 boys, M = 10.15 years old, SD = 0.56) with the Mathematics Anxiety Scale for Children, the Chinese Revised-edition Questionnaire of Pupil’s Metacognitive Ability in Mathematics, and WPS tasks. The results indicated that mathematical metacognition mediated the effect of MA on WPS after controlling for IQ. Second, we divided the children into four mathematics achievement groups including high achieving (HA), typical achieving (TA), low achieving (LA), and mathematical learning difficulty (MLD). Because mathematical metacognition and MA predicted mathematics achievement, we compared group differences in metacognition and MA with IQ partialled out. The results showed that children with MLD scored lower in self-image and higher in learning mathematics anxiety (LMA) than the TA and HA children, but not in mathematical evaluation anxiety (MEA). MLD children’s LMA was also higher than that of their LA counterparts. These results provide insight into factors that may mediate poor WPS performance which emerges under pressure in mathematics. These results also suggest that the anxiety during learning mathematics should be taken into account in mathematical learning difficulty interventions.     

Assessing the performance of volunteers in monitoring streams

1. Citizens are concerned about the quality of water resources and many participate in monitoring activities, though doubts remain about the quality of the data volunteers collect. We trained volunteers to collect benthic macroinvertebrates using professional protocols. Of the seven stream sites sampled by volunteer crews, six sites were also sampled by professional crews.
2. In the laboratory, volunteers used morphological features to identify as many different taxa as possible within the major insect orders; their identification was approximately to family. Volunteers calculated five metrics: total taxon richness, richness of three key groups (Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and Trichoptera), and percentage dominance of the three most abundant taxa. All metrics were strongly correlated with (a) the percentage of urbanized area in the catchment and (b) the metrics derived from a more complete taxonomic identification by a professional scientist. Taxon richness metrics declined with urban development, while percent dominance increased.
3. An overall summary multimetric index was used to compare the field and laboratory procedures of volunteers and professionals. Using an ANOVA model, we detected no significant difference between field samples collected by volunteers and professionals. The variance of index values associated with differences between crews was zero. The ability of the index to detect significant differences among sites (statistical power) improved by only 13% for assessments based on professional laboratory identification instead of volunteer laboratory identification.
4. Citizen volunteers, when properly trained, can collect reliable data and make stream assessments that are comparable to those made by professionals. Data collected by volunteers can supplement information used by government agencies to manage and protect rivers and streams.     

Estimating Contact Process Saturation in Sylvatic Transmission of Trypanosoma cruzi in the United States

Although it has been known for nearly a century that strains of Trypanosoma cruzi, the etiological agent for Chagas'' disease, are enzootic in the southern U.S., much remains unknown about the dynamics of its transmission in the sylvatic cycles that maintain it, including the relative importance of different transmission routes. Mathematical models can fill in gaps where field and lab data are difficult to collect, but they need as inputs the values of certain key demographic and epidemiological quantities which parametrize the models. In particular, they determine whether saturation occurs in the contact processes that communicate the infection between the two populations. Concentrating on raccoons, opossums, and woodrats as hosts in Texas and the southeastern U.S., and the vectors Triatoma sanguisuga and Triatoma gerstaeckeri, we use an exhaustive literature review to derive estimates for fundamental parameters, and use simple mathematical models to illustrate a method for estimating infection rates indirectly based on prevalence data. Results are used to draw conclusions about saturation and which population density drives each of the two contact-based infection processes (stercorarian/bloodborne and oral). Analysis suggests that the vector feeding process associated with stercorarian transmission to hosts and bloodborne transmission to vectors is limited by the population density of vectors when dealing with woodrats, but by that of hosts when dealing with raccoons and opossums, while the predation of hosts on vectors which drives oral transmission to hosts is limited by the population density of hosts. Confidence in these conclusions is limited by a severe paucity of data underlying associated parameter estimates, but the approaches developed here can also be applied to the study of other vector-borne infections.     

Integrating information literacy training into an inquiry-based introductory biology laboratory

ABSTRACT

Information literacy is an essential skill for biologists; however, most biology curricula do not intentionally integrate information literacy into classroom and laboratory exercises. There is evidence that developing information literacy skills in undergraduates improves their research skills, writing, and GPAs. Our objective was to integrate information literacy skills into a first semester introductory biology laboratory with a multi-week, inquiry-based module that leverages primary literature. Here we describe the module, which challenges students to develop and test a hypothesis related to parental care behaviour in birds. Students form hypotheses based on literature searching done during librarian-led information literacy sessions, produce an annotated bibliography, collect and analyse video data of barn swallows feeding their offspring, and present their findings. Analysis of students’ annotated bibliographies indicates that 83% of the referenced papers were appropriate for developing their specific hypotheses. The key elements ofa successful information literacy training plan include faculty-librarian collaboration, multiple classroom or laboratory sessions that introduce or utilize information literacy, and relevance ofthe information literacy training to an assignment. By introducing information literacy early inbiology curricula, departments can develop tiered information literacy plans that incorporate opportunities for students to use and refine these skills throughout their studies.     

Let's Make Gender Diversity in Data Science a Priority Right from the Start

The emergent field of data science is a critical driver for innovation in all sectors, a focus of tremendous workforce development, and an area of increasing importance within science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). In all of its aspects, data science has the potential to narrow the gender gap and set a new bar for inclusion. To evolve data science in a way that promotes gender diversity, we must address two challenges: (1) how to increase the number of women acquiring skills and working in data science and (2) how to evolve organizations and professional cultures to better retain and advance women in data science. Everyone can contribute.Every March we celebrate both International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month. These annual celebrations remind us that through our current individual and collective behavior, all stakeholders can influence how gender-diverse our future history is likely to be. This is especially important in data science, an emerging science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) field that is a critical driver for 21st century innovation.Data science focuses on the extraction of knowledge from data. It is a STEM discipline, but requires skills not yet widely taught in STEM disciplines: Skills in managing large datasets, novel analysis and inference approaches, rigorous statistical analysis, new ways to convey outcomes, and more. A recent McKinsey Report [1] indicates that the United States alone will need 1.5 million more data-savvy professionals and 140,000–190,000 more professionals with deep analytic skills by 2020. Helping to create and nurture a broad pool of individuals with data science skills is critical to addressing this growing need and will require intentional action.The emergent field of data science offers the opportunity to narrow the gender gap in STEM (in which only 13% of the engineering workforce and 25% of the computer and mathematical sciences workforce are women [2]) by making diversity a priority early on. In addition to this being the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do: studies show that companies with employees characterized by diverse inherent traits (traits you were born with) and acquired traits (traits you gain from experience) are 45% more likely to report a growth in market share over the previous year, and 70% more likely to report capture of a new market [3]. Companies with diverse executive boards show higher returns on equity [4]. In short, diversity is a competitive asset in the private sector. In addition, increased diversity in STEM fields, including data science, is a national research and education priority [5].What better time, with increased focus on data science in the public sector, emerging educational curricula and focus within universities, and greater need within the private sector, to foster greater inclusivity and gender diversity? What can we do now to grow data science in a way that reflects the gender diversity and potential for innovation of the greater society?To evolve data science in a way that makes it a rewarding and sustainable career choice for women, we need to address two challenges: how can we increase the number of women acquiring skills and working in data science, and how can we evolve organizations and professional cultures to better retain and advance women in data science?     

Social Skills as a Predictor of Postsecondary Outcomes for Individuals Who Are Deaf

Social skills function as a vehicle by which we negotiate important relationships and navigate the transition from childhood into the educational and professional experiences of early adulthood. Yet, for individuals who are deaf, access to these opportunities may vary depending on their preferred language modality, family language use, and educational contexts. Drawing upon available data in the National Longitudinal Transition Survey 2 (NLTS2) and controlling for demographic covariates, we examine the predictive role of social skills in high school on postsecondary education, employment, independent living, and self-beliefs. Parents’ ratings of social skills in their children who are deaf (from the first wave, when students were in high school) strongly positively predicted graduation from postsecondary settings up to ten years later, but did not predict employment or independent living outcomes.     

Testing the effectiveness of two natural selection simulations in the context of a large-enrollment undergraduate laboratory class

Background

Simulations can be an active and engaging way for students to learn about natural selection, and many have been developed, including both physical and virtual simulations. In this study we assessed the student experience of, and learning from, two natural selection simulations, one physical and one virtual, in a large enrollment introductory biology lab course. We assigned students to treatments (the physical or virtual simulation activity) by section and assessed their understanding of natural selection using a multiple-choice pre-/post-test and short-answer responses on a post-lab assignment. We assessed student experience of the activities through structured observations and an affective survey.

Results

Students in both treatments showed increased understanding of natural selection after completing the simulation activity, but there were no differences between treatments in learning gains on the pre-/post-test, or in the prevalence of concepts and misconceptions in written answers. On a survey of self-reported enjoyment they rated the physical activity significantly higher than the virtual activity. In classroom observations of student behavior, we found significant differences in the distribution of behaviors between treatments, including a higher frequency of off-task behavior during the physical activity.

Conclusions

Our results suggest that both simulations are valuable active learning tools to aid students’ understanding of natural selection, so decisions about which simulation to use in a given class, and how to best implement it, can be motivated by contextual factors.

     

Biofilms and biodiversity: an interactive exploration of aquatic microbial biotechnology and ecology

The study of biofilms provides a unique educational opportunity to examine ecosystems, biodiversity and applications of environmental biotechnology. There are many variables that could be studied for measuring the interactions between bacterial biofilms and invertebrate biodiversity as a method for assessing the health of aquatic ecosystems. These interactions also lend themselves to an easily replicated model system which can be used to reach a wide audience with an educational opportunity for students as well as a professional development opportunity for teachers. At the foundation of the research are invaluable basic microbiology skills: strain collection, isolation, cultivation and characterization. Through the additional process of characterizing, identifying and enumerating invertebrate organisms that attach to bacterial biofilms in aquatic ecosystems, there evolved a multidisciplinary class laboratory activity that has found broad application. This activity is captivating not only to undergraduate microbiology students but to middle and high school students and their teachers. The demand for information about the activity has led to the development of a truly interactive web-based lesson, which in turn has resulted in additional inquiries and further refinement of the lesson as an undergraduate independent research course. Both of these are freely accessible on the web, with growing international participation and data exchange. Journal of Industrial Microbiology & Biotechnology (2000) 24, 334–338. Received 19 April 1999/ Accepted in revised form 17 February 2000