In recent years, accreditation standards for international engineering education have led to a dramatic rise in the use of outcome-based education at universities. In this system, enticing new undergraduate students to science and engineering, although challenging, is the first important step toward building students' career competencies. An ongoing effort to attract students to biotechnology was initiated 13 years ago in the School of Biotechnology at the East China University of Science and Technology in Shanghai. We describe the design and organization of the Microbe Competition, a program attracting a total of nearly 6,500 students as of 2018. In the competition, students need to pass the microbiology knowledge test, provide a practical experiment proposal related to the topic of competition, and finish the experiment under the supervision of teachers before getting final prizes. The competition develops students' competencies in acquiring and applying knowledge, problem solving, teamwork, communication, and experimental skills. By investigating students' feedback, we have been continuously improving the quality of competition to attract more students from the biotechnology major. We hope that by sharing our experience, we can help educators at other universities organize similar introductory activities on their own campuses.

A classroom exercise is described in which college students take part in creating and supporting an evolutionary hypothesis that explains effort grunting. The exercise holds their interest throughout and readies them to understand hypotheses of animal and plant evolution. It informs them about the dependence of cultural evolution upon biological evolution, and it connects widely to curricula.

Science departments in higher education have been adjusting their curricula to include more inquiry-based instruction, and research on inquiry-based teaching at the collegiate level has been increasing. However, more data are needed regarding the effectiveness of inquiry-based pedagogy in improving students' conceptual understanding and attitudes toward science. The investigation described here was focused on nontraditional students taking non-science-major science courses. The goal was to compare students' attitudes toward science before and after taking an inquiry-based or a traditional science course. The hypothesis that the inquiry-based course would significantly generate a more positive attitude toward science was supported. Nontraditional students' perceptions of an effective science curriculum were also explored. Students' perceptions were very positive regarding inquiry-based learning; however, those who had not been previously taught through inquiry-based methods had reserved perceptions of this teaching approach. Regardless of the course they were enrolled in, students agreed overall that an effective science curriculum includes three common themes: connection, interaction, and application.

We describe a structured inquiry-based lesson about the human ear and sound that can lead to long-term retention of content knowledge and reduce the gender gap in science subjects. The lesson integrates the subjects of biology and physics for students about 15 years of age and is suitable with high or low pre-knowledge and for both genders equally. Students learn in hands-on experiments about sound formation and properties; the human outer, middle, and inner ear; and limits to human hearing, both natural and resulting from damage to the inner ear. This lesson is suitable for beginners in inquiry-based learning and teaching. It is designed as structured/level 1 inquiry-based science. The topic and how it is analyzed is provided by the teacher in the lesson material, but students are strongly invited to actively think about why they expect certain results to happen and how the results can be interpreted.

Valley fever, a disease caused by the soilborne fungal pathogen Coccidioides spp., is on the rise in the southwestern United States and is suspected of expanding its habitat in response to climate change. Many people residing in endemic areas are unaware of the risk of contracting coccidioidomycosis by inhaling fugitive dust that may contain dormant arthroconidia of this fungus. In an effort to teach students about the ongoing epidemic of valley fever and reduce incidence of the disease through education, we developed an inquiry-based, multi-focus laboratory exercise that (1) increases awareness of valley fever incidence, disease symptoms, and ongoing efforts of disease prevention; (2) teaches about the pathogen's ecology; and (3) familiarizes students with molecular techniques targeting pathogen identification. This laboratory exercise uses polymerase chain reaction to detect Coccidioides spp. in DNA extracts from soil samples collected by students across different soil environments. Additionally, this exercise will teach students how to use publicly available data to investigate disease incidence over time and characterize soils the pathogen may inhabit.

Place-based instruction allows students to explore learned concepts while building emotional connections with the location in which they are studying. Furthermore, the case for experiential science education continues to grow, and such pedagogy may be particularly beneficial to learning in ecology and environmental science. We present an experiential, place-based pedagogy aimed at introducing international high school or undergraduate students to the concept of biological invasions. Our lesson began by introducing our class, a group of Chinese high school students in a summer program in the United States, with examples of invasive species that had previously been introduced from China into the United States or vice versa. Guided discussion then focused on plant and animal species with which the students had some familiarity and covered concepts of biological invasions more generally. Next, students participated in a field activity exploring the ecology of the invasive tumbleweed Salsola tragus, a Eurasian (including much of China) species that has invaded the United States. Through classroom and field activity, students gained understanding of biological invasions, and we believe that internalization was enhanced by connecting the lesson with students' own experiences and participation in basic scientific methods and ecological fieldwork.

Science education often fails to address the actual range of adolescents' interests. One such interest is music. Research shows that young people devote large amounts of time and money to music. By tapping into students' interest in music, affective outcomes can be achieved in the biology classroom. This article describes a project-based learning activity that studies the influence of music on seed germination. Part of the student project is to conduct a literature search on the influence of music on plants, and possibly also on people (its biological, psychological, and social effects). The project is contextualized in the indigenous practice of making music while planting crops. There is a growing body of literature suggesting that music can improve crop yields. Students are required to follow the key features of project-based learning to plan and execute an inquiry to determine the influence of music on seed germination. Students undertaking a literature study will find research showing that music affects the viscosity of the plasmalemma and the availability of intercellular Ca²⁺, which, in turn, influences the activity of membrane-based enzymes. This can lead to larger amounts of water, nutrients, and growth regulators entering the plant cell. The article also reflects on data obtained from high school biology students as they engage in the learning activity.

Much evidence supports the role of writing-to-learn (WTL) assignments in improving student learning and argumentation skills. However, designing effective assignments can be challenging for instructors. We describe a process for modifying WTL assignments that were originally developed for small undergraduate biology classes (24 students) for use in large introductory cell biology courses (>80 students). Students explore a socioscientific issue (cancer treatment) intended to engage them. Students learn content through reading journal articles and textbook chapters, attending class, and participating in discussions. All along, students participate in iterative writing assignments and engage in peer evaluation and self-evaluation. Finally, students write persuasive arguments about how best to treat cancer. We describe how instructors can develop their own WTL assignments in their large biology courses.

Thermal imagery provides new opportunities to study concepts and processes in biology. Examples include using infrared (IR) cameras in educational activities to explore energy transfer and transformation in human physiology, animal thermoregulation, and plant metabolism. The user-friendly and visually intuitive nature of IR technology is well suited to the study of rapidly changing temperatures on biological surfaces, due to such energy transfers. IR cameras are therefore potentially helpful pedagogical tools for approaching the Energy and Matter crosscutting concept in the Life Sciences discipline of the Next Generation Science Standards.