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    Teaching Tools and Strategies
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    Gratitude Interventions in a Biology Course to Foster Student Persistence and Success
    College students are experiencing a mental health crisis, which has been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This is problematic because stress and anxiety impede learning. One way to combat stress and anxiety is to focus on gratitude,...
    LessonPlus
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    The Power of Place: A Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience Studying Urban Ecology, Local Apple Trees and Disease Susceptibility
    Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) offered early in an undergraduate student’s career have the potential to include a greater number and diversity of students than one-on-one mentored research. CUREs that use a...

    Courses: EcologyEcology

    Lesson
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    447

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    Teaching Advanced Concepts in Regulation of the Lac Operon With Modeling and Simulation
    Success in biochemistry and other life science courses requires that students understand important biological concepts. One of these concepts is how gene regulation ensures that homeostasis is maintained in an organism. The lac operon is a...
    Lesson
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    909

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    Tackling "Big Data" with Biology Undergrads: A Simple RNA-seq Data Analysis Tutorial Using Galaxy
    Analyzing high-throughput DNA sequence data is a fundamental skill in modern biology. However, real and perceived barriers such as massive file sizes, substantial computational requirements, and lack of instructor background knowledge can...
    Lesson
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    229

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    Role of Crop Genetic Diversity on Pathogen Impact: The Tale of Two Pathogens
    Introductory genetics courses are part of the core curriculum in many different fields, including plant breeding, animal science, biology, microbiology, and natural resource management. Concepts involving genes, inheritance, evolution, and genome...
    Lesson
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    Sequences and Properties of Gluten Proteins From Different Grains: A Virtual-Friendly Protein Laboratory
    The COVID-19 pandemic has forced much university instruction into virtual modes. As a result, many laboratory courses have either dropped content altogether or replaced hands-on activities with simulations and “dry” labs. Our goal was...
    Lesson
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    Outside the Norm: Using Public Ecology Database Information to Teach Biostatistics
    Biology students’ understanding of statistics is incomplete due to poor integration of these two disciplines. In some cases, students fail to learn statistics at the undergraduate level due to poor student interest and cursory teaching of...
    Lesson
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    393

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    Learning How to Make “Good Enough” Estimations
    The ability to estimate physical quantities is a useful skill that can help develop critical thinking and scientific literacy. This lesson provides an accessible way to teach students how to estimate physical quantities by focusing on three key...
    Lesson
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    229

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    Exploring the Broader Impacts of Science and Society in an Active Learning Environment
    Science and society have always been intertwined. Today, scientists are increasingly encouraged to interact with the public by conducting transparent and participatory engaged scholarship, as opposed to the prevailing one-way transfer of...
    Review
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    282

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    Active Learning: Developing Self-Directed Learners Through Strong Intellectual Engagement
    When they were students, many current science instructors learned through traditional lectures. This mode of passive knowledge transmission has been shown to be less effective for student learning than an approach that involves students in a...
    Lesson
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    Squirreling Around for Science: Observing Sciurid Rodents to Investigate Animal Behavior
    Hands-on research experiences are important opportunities for students to learn about the nature of inquiry and gain confidence in solving problems. Here, we present an inquiry-based lesson plan that investigates the foraging behavior of sciurid...
    Lesson
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    1118

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    Mapping a Mutation to its Gene: The "Fly Lab" as a Modern Research Experience
    Although genetics is an invaluable part of the undergraduate biology curriculum, it can be intimidating to students as well as instructors: Students must reduce their reliance on memorization and dive deep into quantitative analysis, and...
    Lesson
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    515

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    A Kinesthetic Modeling Activity to Teach PCR Fundamentals
    Most molecular biology and biological sciences students understand that the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is used to amplify DNA. However, we have found that some students experience conceptual misunderstandings, a lack of detailed comprehension...
    PCR
    Teaching Tools and Strategies
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    Science “Fails”: A Bank of Historical Examples for Learning From Failure in Science
    Learning from failure is critically important to the processes of scientific inquiry, discovery, and invention. However, students are not routinely taught how to reflect on, learn from, and ultimately embrace failure, and relatively few curricular...
    Lesson
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    459

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    Go Extinct! An Award-Winning Evolution Game That Teaches Tree-Thinking as Students Pursue the Winning Strategy
    Evolutionary trees communicate both the diversity and unity of life, a central and important scientific concept, as highlighted by the Vision and Change undergraduate biology education movement. Evolutionary trees and cladograms are diagrams...

    Courses: EvolutionEvolution

    Lesson
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    342

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    Cutthroat trout in Colorado: A case study connecting evolution and conservation
    Evaluation of evidence is a key process skill for the core competencies of applying the process of science and using quantitative reasoning. This case study enables upper-division biology students to practice these skills by applying evolutionary...
    Lesson
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    459

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    Antibiotic Resistance Genes Detection in Environmental Samples
    Our aim is to provide an authentic research experience for undergraduate students in a variety of biology courses through collaboration between a four-year university and a community college. This lab series teaches transferable and universal...
    Lesson
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    Teaching Cancer Biology Through a Lens of Social Justice
    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...

    Courses: Cell BiologyCell Biology

    Lesson
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    Moths and Frogs and E. coli, Oh My!: Agent-based Modeling of Evolutionary Systems
    In evolution classrooms, introducing and reinforcing the idea of genetic drift and random selection can be challenging, as can be reinforcing appropriate mental models of evolution. Agent-based models offer students the opportunity to conduct a...
    Lesson
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    556

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    Understanding Gastric Acid Secretion: An Active Learning Approach
    The human digestive system is a diverse network of cells, tissues, and organs that is regulated by systemic (e.g., nervous and endocrine systems) and local factors (e.g., secretions, pH, and the microbiome). Given the volume of content and the...