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    Helping Students to Overcome STUMPS: Scientific terms undermined by meanings peripheral to science
    Many terms and phrases that are ubiquitous in everyday use have very different meanings in science. As a result, biology students often hold prior conceptions that are difficult to change. In this...

    Keywords: Evolutionfitnessprocess of sciencetree of lifemetacognitionlanguagemisconceptionsTerminologyTheory

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    Evaluating Representation in Science Through a Peer-Reviewed Research Study
    The demographic representation of scientists featured in biology curricular materials do not match that of the undergraduate biology student population or of the U.S. population. In this lesson, we...

    Keywords: societyRepresentationSTEM equity

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    My Fish Tank: An Active Learning Activity for Bacterial Nitrogen Metabolism
    This active learning activity introduces students to the second part of the nitrogen cycle, nitrification. In terrestrial and aquatic environments, bacteria from the Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter...

    Keywords: nitrogen cyclenitrificationnitrifying bacteria

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    Helping Students to Metacognitively Read Scientific Literature With Talking to the Text
    Reading primary scientific literature enhances students’ understanding of material, increases their self-efficacy, and critical thinking skills. However, scientific articles often present...

    Keywords: scientific literaturereading comprehensionmetacognitionScience process skillsTalking to the TextDense Scientific Texts

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    Walkabout: An Easy to Use, Experiential Learning Activity for Applying Abstract Concepts to the Real-World
    Students can have difficulty recognizing examples of course concepts in the real-world. They particularly struggle with phenomena that are ambiguously defined, have mimics, or are hard to...

    Keywords: data gatheringgreen technologyobservations

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    The Three Sisters of Agriculture: An Active Learning Activity on Symbiotic Nitrogen Fixation
    This active learning exercise introduces students to the plant microbiome and the contributions that bacteria make to plant growth and food production. The Three Sisters are an ancient indigenous...

    Keywords: SymbiosisPlant microbiomeNitrogen fixationNutritional content of foodElectron flowSociety impact of microorganisms

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    What's in this? Students Deliberate on Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals Found in Everyday Healthcare Items to Build Democratic Skills
    In helping our students become informed and active members of society, it is necessary that they develop certain skills that will empower them to improve their community and governance. These...

    Keywords: cellEndocrinehormones

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    Transitioning Two-Stage Exams to an Online Class
    Students often find biology courses to be very difficult and isolating, particularly if they identify as part of a group that has been historically excluded from STEM. Some of this anxiety and...

    Keywords: lower division STEMupper division STEM

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    Integrating Community Ecology Into the Study of Parasites: Exploring the Effect of Host Behavior on Parasite Transmission Rates
    Organismal life cycles are often presented as a set of facts to memorize in undergraduate biology courses. This approach is cognitively demanding for students and fails to convey how central life...

    Keywords: statisticsspecies interactionsQuantitative reasoninggraphsCommunity EcologyParasitologyfood webs

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    Teaching the Central Dogma Using a Case Study of Genetic Variation in Cystic Fibrosis
    The central dogma of biology is a foundational concept that is traditionally included in genetics curricula at all academic levels. Despite its ubiquitous presence throughout genetics education,...

    Keywords: transcriptioncentral dogmatranslationsequence analysisDNA replicationgenetic variants

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    Problem-Based Learning for Physiology: Synthesizing the Cardiovascular System, Respiration, Macronutrient Metabolism, and Renal Function
    Problem Based Learning (PBL) is a valuable tool for helping students overcome reliance on memorization by scaffolding opportunities for them to practice the competency of...

    Keywords: MetabolismObesityblood pressurecardiac functioncardiovascularmetabolic syndromerenalRespirationrespiratory system

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    Unwrapping Enzyme Kinetics
    Enzyme rates and kinetics are key components used by biochemists to understand how enzymes function. However, students often find it difficult to understand how these experiments are performed and...

    Keywords: kineticsstructure-functionenzymescatalysis

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    The Comics Project: Synthesizing and Communicating Science with Comics
    Students, especially non-science majors, often see science as abstracted from their daily lives. Moreover, students often struggle to translate scientific concepts into everyday language in order...

    Keywords: communicating scienceScience & Societycomics

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    "Reading groups" in an undergraduate biology course: A peer-based model to help students develop skills to evaluate primary literature
    Undergraduates who learn to evaluate primary literature demonstrate an enhanced ability to understand the process of science, weigh scientific evidence, and think critically (e.g. 6,8). Studies...

    Keywords: primary literaturecritical thinkingSelf-EfficacyDiscussionPeer-based Learning

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    The Lecture-Free Classroom: Teaching students backward design and Bloom's Taxonomy to create their own learning environment
    We describe Presentation Enhanced Learning (PEL), a flexible, lecture-free, field-tested teaching format to promote problem-based, active learning in upper-division or graduate biological sciences...

    Keywords: active learningbackward designProblem based learningBloom's Taxonomy

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    Exploration of the Human Genome by Investigation of Personalized SNPs
    Students often shy away from tedious bioinformatics approaches to exploring their genomes. However, in our expanding digital world these skills are some of the most relevant and valuable. To...

    Keywords: UCSC genome browsersingle nucleotide polymorphismGenome wide association studiesGenomic organization

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    A CRISPR/Cas Guide RNA Design In Silico Activity
    CRISPR biotechnologies inspired by the Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat RNA-guided nuclease adaptive bacterial immune system have revolutionized biology research and become...

    Keywords: bioinformaticsgene expressiongenetic basis of diseaseCRISPR/Cas9genetic engineeringin silico

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    Starting Conversations About Discrimination Against Women in STEM
    Many scientists know about — and experience — discrimination against women. In this professional development lesson, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, faculty, and other career...

    Keywords: identityracismGender discriminationIntersectionalityMicroagressionsSexismSexual assaultSexual harassmentTrolling

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    CRISPR/Cas9 in yeast: a multi-week laboratory exercise for undergraduate students
    Providing undergraduate life-science students with a course-based research experience that utilizes cutting-edge technology, is tractable for students, and is manageable as an instructor is a...

    Keywords: bioinformaticsPCRphenotypingCRISPR/Cas9gene editingcloningGenotypingRestriction enzyme

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    Using Yeast to Make Scientists: A Six-Week Student-Driven Research Project for the Cell Biology Laboratory
    Traditionally-trained undergraduate students often lack an understanding of science as an active process that yields the information presented in their textbooks. One result has been a call for...

    Keywords: yeastgrowth curvecell proliferationviability

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