High school students are very seldomly, if at all, taught that race is a social rather than biological construct, and this pedagogical omission has led to biological essentialism. Biological essentialism is the belief that race can be used in predictable ways to determine intellect and/or behavior. Biological essentialism can result in the belief that unscientifically proven racial stereotypes are true. Much work is needed to support the teaching of a scientifically accurate understanding of human diversity in high school biology courses. It is of paramount importance that students are engaged in instruction that addresses racial misconceptions before they graduate high school and enter society as leaders, lawmakers, and civically active members. Missed instructional opportunities can result in the perpetuation of racial stereotypes that fuel systemic racism. The following is a culturally responsive 5E lesson “Reimagining a Culture of Equality” (R.A.C.E.). R.A.C.E. lessons are lesson model designed by the author to promote accurate teaching and understanding of human diversity, ultimately resulting in a more tolerant and scientifically literate learner.

Mentorship plays an important role in the experiences of undergraduate researchers, and students may interact with multiple potential mentors in laboratory settings. Using qualitative methods, we explored the relationships between undergraduate students engaged in research and their mentors in faculty-led laboratories, with particular attention to the roles that mentors play in the enculturation of undergraduates into science. Students rarely considered faculty as their primary mentors, rather whomever they spent the most time or worked most closely with—usually a graduate student or postdoc. There was a large disparity between women and men students identifying as scientists, and in the criteria by which they claim science identity. However, nearly all faculty members considered undergraduate researchers as scientists. This suggests that faculty members might boost the science identity of undergraduate women by simply calling them scientists.

The value to students of discussing and evaluating bioethical scenarios has been widely demonstrated, yet relatively few natural science courses incorporate this topic as part of the curriculum. This paper presents an activity to introduce bioethics into a college introductory-level, general education natural science course. The objective of this activity is to help students critically analyze and evaluate bioethics scenarios across a wide range of topics (e.g., animal testing, gene therapy, ownership of human remains) that incorporate common bioethical concepts. At the end of the activity, students reflect on their given scenario and the broader implications of science on society.

Inquiry-driven teaching methods allow students to take on an active role in their own education. Through this framework, students are able to cultivate an understanding of scientific concepts and their connections while experimenting in the classroom. Our project centered around teaching students about habitats of urban moths, which are abundant in most environments. Based on the students' hypotheses on where moths might be, homemade moth traps were placed either in a local nature preserve or in the school playground over the course of two nights. Overall, 27 moths were captured. Students then learned how to pin moth specimens and assessed what they could infer from how many moths were captured in each of the collection areas. This project created an environment for students to approach Next Generation Science Standards performance expectations about the diversity of life and how organisms interact with their environments.

The global COVID-19 pandemic has forced many educators to move their courses to the online environment with little time to adjust. It especially affected undergraduate biology laboratory courses that rely on on-campus facilities to provide students with meaningful laboratory-type experiences. Here we describe a multisession, at-home, and hands-on laboratory activity that utilizes yogurt culturing to explore microbiology concepts. We also summarize the findings of 219 undergraduate students who successfully performed this lab remotely. In small virtual groups, students learned how to make yogurt at home, formulate a testable hypothesis, run an experiment on conditions necessary for yogurt fermentation, analyze experimental results, and present their results to peers in an oral scientific talk. Practical considerations include the use of low-cost and accessible materials, low-tech yet effective quantification approaches, and online note-taking and data management tools to coordinate group work and provide informal and formal assessment.

Students' sound knowledge about osmosis can lead to their understanding of other related biological processes that require the movement of materials across cell membranes, such as photosynthesis, homeostasis, and cellular respiration. However, students have difficulties to understand osmosis. This challenge has been attributed to the abstract nature of the concept and the way it is presented to students. Thus, we present an engineering design, integrated biology unit in which students use the engineering design process to learn about osmosis and its related concepts. A dependent t-test revealed statistically significant differences in students' understanding of osmosis and related concepts, and the engineering design process before and after the unit. Overall, in this unit students developed the understanding of osmosis in a real-world context through an engineering design process.

We present material and instructions to teach the construction of phylogenetic trees using specifically designed images of dragons. Using fictional creatures, we can control the number and properties of characteristics, as well as present students with a context they might consider interesting. Besides creating evolutionary trees from data, students can learn that trees based on morphological characteristics might contradict and trees based on genetic analysis are a more reliable tool in classification. The material used in this learning environment is freely available, so educators can use and customize it freely.

Students working with this material declared a high motivation to work with the fictional animals and engaged in very active discussions about different classifications of the dragons.

Teaching biology laboratories remotely presents unique problems and challenges for instructors. Microscopic examination of specimens, as is common in parasitology labs, is especially difficult given the limited quantity of teaching specimens and the need for each student to have access to a microscope at their remote location. Observing images of parasites on the internet coupled with written exercises, while useful, is unrepresentative of real-world laboratory or field conditions. To provide a more realistic microscopy-centered synchronous experience for our parasitology class during the coronavirus pandemic, we used a smartphone mounted on a student microscope to livestream examination of parasite specimens to remote students via the Webex meeting app. This allowed two instructors, working from separate locations, to present and narrate the view of the specimens through the microscope in real time to the remotely located class. While less than ideal, livestreaming microscopic views of parasite specimens together with simultaneous instructor narration provided a reasonable remote substitute for a hands-on parasitology lab experience.

The critical thinking and diagnostic methods involved in troubleshooting experiments or diagnosing patients are important for undergraduate students looking to enter a research or medical career. However, there are often few opportunities or activities in the classroom for students to develop troubleshooting skills. We developed flipped classroom activities for use in an introductory research methodology course to aid students in applying lecture knowledge of how PCR and western blots work and to analyze failed experimental data. The problem-solving, scientific logic, and real data used for this lab make it relevant to the interests of students.