Pathways for Accelerating Change in Social Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in STEM Curricula

For this assignment, students will investigate relationships between historic redlining data and modern statistics of human health.

In this exercise, students use a combination of publicly available data and tree cover data that they generate using iTree Canopy to test whether tree cover is equitably distributed within the city of Dallas.

Air quality is an environmental issue that impacts everyone in Los Angeles. This activity presents current popular press articles about air pollution and environmental justice and maps and graphs PM pollution in Los Angeles.

Basic data handling and data analysis skills are introduced to visualize and analyze ‘big data.’ Environmental justice is introduced to give students an understanding of tools and strategies to explore while developing advocacy and communication skills.

This exercise explores circumstances of urban heat islands in the United States using spatial data, including an exploration of heat island solutions.

The issues of redlining and environmental justice will be introduced and used as a framework for a number of topics in the third part of the semester in a non-majors Environmental Science course.

My teaching notes for the Evolution of Human Skin Color case study.

National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science- while the concept of evolution by natural selection is very simple, it is often misunderstood by students.

Poster on a case study on the genetics of human skin color presented at the 2018 QUBES/BioQUEST Summer Workshop

Environmental health is a field of study within public health that is concerned with human-environment interactions, and specifically, how the environment influences public well-being. In this module, students will explore how environmental pollution impacts public health through comparing cancer rates of areas with known environmental pollutants to the national average through a t-test. Students can further their knowledge by comparing the concentrations of atmospheric pollutants in areas with known sources to control sites without such sources. Project EDDIE modules are designed with an A-B-C structure to make them flexible and adaptable to a range of student levels and course structures.

This is a presentation for the 2022 BIOME meeting.

The biology classroom is not separate from the greater context of society; social issues can and should be presented in connection with the content. Here we present an example of antiracist teaching using the molecular/cellular biology of cancer in an introductory biology course as a topic through which to address historic racial disparities. Through this lesson, students analyzed biological science through the lens of social justice, specifically looking at disparities of cancer incidence with ties to health outcomes and environmental racism. The synchronous activity begins with personal tie-ins to the broader subject of cancer and then dives into the molecular regulation involved in creating cancerous phenotypes. Cancer biology is explored using an active-learning style based in process-oriented guided inquiry learning (POGIL) tactics. Multiple levels of assessments pushed students to grapple with data about racial health disparities and make explicit connections between these data and molecular mechanisms of cancer formation. This paper provides activity worksheets, an activity timeline, an example of assessment items, and teacher preparation for other instructors who want to emulate this lesson either directly or as an example of adjusting other science topics towards this lens. For those teaching in different topics, we offer advice and examples to help instructors to include social justice lenses into their science teaching.

Primary image: Malignant History. Artwork by Heidi-Marie Wiggins and Jeannette Takashima.

In this role-playing case study, students will learn about the HeLa cell line and its origins while examining multiple perspectives surrounding the cell line and its uses. The goal of this case study is for students to use guided questions to analyze different points of view such as researchers, family members, center directors, and contemporary scientists. Students will assume pre-designated roles and prepare short presentations for a panel of their peers to arrive at a decision regarding the further use of HeLa cells. This case may be completed in one 75-minute lesson or over a two-hour lab period. To accomplish this, the case study is divided into three parts including: 1) individual pre-class research and homework; 2) in-class group work and sharing of information among the class; and 3) an individual written post-class reflection. Ultimately, students are expected to consider and formulate an informed perspective to address the question: Should the continued use of HeLa cells be permitted in scientific research at our university?

Primary image: Merged brightfield and green fluorescent image of Histone H2B-Green Fluorescent Protein expressing HeLa Cell Line (Millipore Cat. # SCC117). The image highlights several phases of mitosis as well as polyploidy of HeLa cells. Scale bar = 20 μm. Image Source: Dr. Kevin J. O’Donovan, Department of Chemistry and Life Science, United States Military Academy.

Air pollution directly affects human health endpoints including growth, respiratory processes, cardiovascular health, fertility, pregnancy outcomes, and cancer. Therefore, the distribution of air pollution is a topic that is relevant to all, and of direct interest to many students. Air quality varies across space and time, often disproportionally affecting minority communities and impoverished neighborhoods. Air pollution is usually higher in locations where pollution sources are concentrated, such as industrial production facilities, highways, and coal-fired power plants. The United States Environmental Protection Agency manages a national air quality-monitoring program to measure and report air-pollutant levels across the United States. These data cover multiple decades and are publicly available via a website interface. For this lesson, students learn how to mine data from this website. They work in pairs to develop their own questions about air quality or air pollution that span spatial and/or temporal scales, and then gather the data needed to answer their question. The students analyze their data and write a scientific paper describing their work. This laboratory experience requires the students to generate their own questions, gather and interpret data, and draw conclusions, allowing for creativity and instilling ownership and motivation for deeper learning gains.