Diverse communities of arthropods and microbes provide humans with essential ecosystem goods and services. Arthropods are the most diverse and abundant macroscopic animals on the planet, and many remain to be discovered. Much less is known about microbial diversity, despite their importance as free-living species and as symbionts. We created…

In our science for non-science majors course "21st Century Physics," we investigate modern "Hubble plots" (plots of velocity versus distance for deep space objects) in order to discuss the Big Bang, dark matter, and dark energy. There are two potential challenges that our students face when encountering these topics for the…

On a partly sunny afternoon, a fourth-grade class at the Marietta Center for Advanced Academics in Marietta, Georgia, was gearing up to explore key concepts regarding the nature of light. Armed with translucent beads and white pipe cleaners, the classroom teacher asked each student to count eight beads and then encouraged them to closely observe…