This qualitative study compares the views about nature of science (NOS) between students enrolled in a traditional lecture and laboratory course and students in an inquiry-based class to the view of the scientists who taught the course. We administered the Views of Nature of Science Form C (VNOS-C) to identify students' views after partaking in…

The historical dimension of biology attests to the various conceptions of living organisms that have governed the construction of scientific knowledge over time, some of which still persist today. The present study aimed to identify and characterise the various conceptions of living organisms held by future teachers and biologists and the…

The field of biology is becoming increasingly fragmented, and this fragmentation spills over into the ways our students think and learn about biology. Biology education policy documents stress the importance of teaching biology in an integrated manner and call for the biology education research community to establish a unifying paradigm for the…

Acceptance of human evolution seems to be the majority position for the U.S. population; however, acceptance of evolution among conservative Christian groups is low, sometimes below 50%. There are many different reasons for this low acceptance, leading to a significant disconnect between scientific specialists and the general population. This…

Naturalists enrich our scientific understanding of biodiversity. However, just as countries have fallen behind on commitments to provide biodiversity conservation funding, so has the focus of life science stayed arm's length. The purpose of this article is to consider why biodiversity should be the center of life sciences education and how…

The authors are a group of Western-trained biologists (seven students and one faculty member) from diverse cultural backgrounds, who spent a semester exploring how they might complement their epistemological approach to addressing real-world problems by including possibilities outside the Western-scientific methodology. Their study focused on how…

STEM is a well-known acronym describing the intersections of science, technology, engineering, and math. Emerging from this paradigm is a relatively new interdisciplinary model entitled STEAM. STEAM endeavors to intersperse "the arts" into the sciences with the expectation of increasing student engagement and skills within the sciences.…

Science popularisation festivals attract more and more people every year, showing that there is a need to satisfy public curiosity. Such events are good occasions to disseminate knowledge to a large audience. The results of scientific research bring advances for mankind. Since research mostly depends on public funds, it is important to gain…

Systems thinking, the ability to reason about systems in abstract terms, fosters students' coherent understanding of biology. This study aimed to determine to what extent the integration of systems thinking in Dutch biology education is in line with perspectives from systems theories and experts. We related the perspective on systems thinking of…

In this article we discuss, as a proof of concept, how a network model can be used to analyse gaze tracking data coming from a preliminary experiment carried out in a biodiversity education research project. We discuss the network model, a simple directed graph, used to represent the gaze tracking data in a way that is meaningful for the study of…

Statistical methods are indispensable to the practice of science. But statistical hypothesis testing can seem daunting, with P-values, null hypotheses, and the concept of statistical significance. This article explains the concepts associated with statistical hypothesis testing using the story of "the lady tasting tea," then walks the…

The purpose of this article is to outline the evolution of biology education in Soviet schools in the 1920s and 1930s. After some introductory consideration of the ideological changes taking place in the field of genetics that impacted on the teaching of science and led to botany being favoured over biology in schools, the first part outlines the…

The purpose of this study is to examine the learning outcomes in the curriculum of Biology course in terms of reflective thinking skills. It is a documentary qualitative research. The target area of the study is the curriculum of the Biology course in secondary school level. Biology course curriculum of grades 9-12 was included in the research…

In 2016, professors representing Biology, Dance, Music, and Theatre and dance program students created "Dunes," a performance piece that depicts the ecological succession of Michigan's sand dunes. The process used to make this work is a direct representation of the steps that Team Hyena Puppet, a collective of teaching artists and…

Background: Children's interest in science is known to decline around the upper primary age, and botanical topics are unpopular with students. Drama in education has the potential to increase motivation and interest in school science. Purpose: The study examined the impact of immersive drama on knowledge about biological classification and…