One of the most perplexing dilemmas in modern science is chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). Even though the illness was recognized at the beginning of the 20th century, the pathogenicity and etiology of the disease remain unknown. We describe an open-inquiry case study on CFS that we have used in our biology classrooms to increase students' critical-thinking skills and understanding of scientific method. Three general categories of potential pathogens – virus, vaccine, and microbiome – are discussed during multiple classroom sessions. We found that our students were more proactive than expected. They researched credible references from the most recent publications and formulated arguments on the medical issue. They applied knowledge of human body systems to explain the complexity of the disease. Students were capable of distinguishing “correlation” and “cause” relations between the disease and pathogens. We observed a high level of student participation and involvement, which not only increased their knowledge of scientific approaches but also strengthened their interaction and communication skills. The case study is suitable for biology courses in both high school and college.

Classroom action research (CAR) represents a midpoint between teacher reflection at one end and traditional educational research at the other. CAR is a process in which a teacher identifies problems in the context of his or her own classroom and then engages in investigative methods to address the problems. Teachers sometimes shy away from CAR, due to their lack of training in research methodology, time constraints, and the fact that not all schools value or support such a scholarship of teaching and learning. I show how cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) could be used as a practical lens when engaging in CAR, and how this could help biology teachers become more reflective practitioners by using a rigorous tool to analyze data. Third-generation CHAT is explained and the reader is shown, through a practical example, how research findings could be analyzed and interpreted through a CHAT lens.

While learner-centeredness is important to quantify, education researchers disagree on how best to measure it. The overall aim of this research was to measure the learner-centeredness of introductory biology classrooms with a valid and reliable instrument that offers a different perspective than self-reported faculty surveys or expert observation protocols – Palmer et al.'s (2014) syllabus scoring rubric. We investigated whether syllabus rubric scores aligned with both faculty self-reports and expert observations of learner-centeredness from the same classrooms, and whether these other metrics predict an instructor's total syllabus score better than instructor gender or years of teaching experience. Course syllabi from eight instructors who taught the same nonmajors biology course were scored independently using this syllabus scoring rubric. Our results suggest that syllabus learning objectives link to learner-centeredness and, interestingly, that other external metrics of learner-centeredness may predict syllabus rubric scores derived from Palmer et al.'s instrument.

We describe an interdisciplinary research project for undergraduate students involving microbiology and public health. Students designed and carried out two research studies on hand hygiene and the use of gloves by mobile food vendors in New York City and in a New Jersey mall. Students received training in aseptic techniques and survey methodology to carry out the multifaceted study. We discuss the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and research in the context of its value in preparing professionals in the fields of biology and public health.

A feature of science is its production of evidence-based explanations. Scientific models can both provide causal explanations and be predictive of natural phenomena. Modeling-based inquiry (MBI) is a pedagogical strategy that promotes students' deep learning about phenomena via engagement in authentic scientific practices. Some university instructors have begun to facilitate MBI in their courses, notably those aimed at aspiring K–12 science educators who, per the Next Generation Science Standards, are encouraged to implement MBI. Yet exploration of curriculum and teaching with MBI in postsecondary environments is scarce. We detail a novel MBI curriculum implemented in a postsecondary ecology course that included students interested in future careers in education. The curriculum engages students in modeling why there is greater biological diversity in tropical than in temperate regions. This biological phenomenon continues to be of great interest to the scientific community. We briefly detail how the curriculum impacted students' understanding of participation in aspects of scientific practices and their comfort with facilitating MBI.

We describe a series of engaging exercises in which students emulate the process that researchers use to efficiently develop new pharmaceutical drugs, that of rational drug design. The activities are taken from a three- to four-hour workshop regularly conducted with first-year college students and presented here to take place over three to four class periods. Although targeted at college students, these activities may be appropriate at the high school level as well, particularly in an AP Biology course. The exercises introduce students to the topics of bioinformatics and computer modeling, in the context of rational drug design, using free online resources such as databases and computer programs. Through the process of learning about computational drug design and drug optimization, students also learn content such as elements of protein structure and protein–ligand interactions. Based on our assessment, students enjoy the exercises, become more interested in bioinformatics and computer modeling, and demonstrate an increase in content knowledge relevant to the topics.

One of the goals of the Science Education Against Drug Abuse Partnership (SEADAP) is to increase student knowledge about drugs through the implementation of an inquiry-based curriculum. A science teacher who was a participant in the SEADAP program served as a facilitator for middle school students participating in an after-school program to assist them with designing their own experiment using planarians (flatworms) exposed to caffeine, sugar, and an energy drink. Results indicated that the average velocity of the planarians in 1 mM caffeine, 1 mM sucrose, and 0.1% Monster Energy drink increased in comparison to their behavior in spring water. The students also learned that substances such as energy drinks can be lethal to planarians.

The elucidation of the principal features of chemical synaptic transmission has been one of the great achievements in the history of neuroscience, yet students have significant difficulties developing a deeper understanding of the underlying concept. This is particularly true for the role that diffusion of neurotransmitters across the synaptic cleft plays in this process. At least part of the learning problem is due to an erroneous view of diffusion as a slow process, and to an inability to apply the concepts of size and scale to the synapse and its structural components. To overcome these difficulties, a structured/guided inquiry activity, combined with quantitative reasoning tasks, is described for teaching chemical synaptic transmission as part of undergraduate biology or neuroscience courses. Through this activity, students familiarize themselves with the absolute and relative dimensions of the structural components of synapses; use data from morphometric and schematic models of synapses to estimate the time it takes a neurotransmitter to diffuse across the synaptic cleft; and evaluate how this process relates to synaptic delay and generation of a sufficiently high concentration of transmitter molecules for activation of postsynaptic receptors.

Students in a high school biology class were introduced to the case of “Marcus” (a pseudonym), a high school football player who collapsed on the football field during a game and was rushed to the emergency room with various symptoms. Throughout the two-week, project-based unit, students worked in cooperative groups to diagnose Marcus, learning about various inherited diseases and heat-related ailments that might impact young athletes. This unit integrates ultrasound technology into the classroom as a teaching and diagnostic technique and introduces students to health science careers. Student groups work to produce a final product that is presented to a public audience (e.g., parents, teachers, coaches) to increase their awareness of the science content underlying the causes of sudden collapses in young athletes. This learning experience ended with students individually writing a letter to Marcus's family explaining his diagnosis and the related biology concepts.

Collecting meaningful data in an undergraduate human physiology lab course can be difficult for a variety of reasons. I describe a way of creating an inquiry-based, semester-long project that allows students practice in designing retrospective research questions using a large database containing common physiology data. The database generated during this project has the capability of adding new participants each semester the course is taught. This approach can be used with a variety of different physiology acquisition systems and can easily be specialized for the learning outcomes of a given physiology laboratory course.