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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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    Online Information Literacy: Applying the CRAAP Test to Vaccine (Mis)information
    Teaching scientific literacy skills can help combat the propagation of misinformation online. This lesson is intended to give students practice identifying reliable scientific information on the...

    Keywords: Vaccinesimmunityreliability

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    Ain't No Mountain Pine Enough: A Case Study of How Mountain Pine Beetles are Affecting Ecosystem Processes
    This case study engages students in generating hypotheses and predictions, analyzing and interpreting data, critically evaluating contrasting results in science, and thinking about feedbacks...

    Keywords: population biologycarbon cyclingSpecies-habitat interactions

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    The 4-Minute Summary: Helping students recall, recap and explain the big picture... and much more!
    Actively engaging students during a lecture class can come through many formats.  The 4-Minute Summary is a versatile pedagogy that can be readily applied to any class format (e.g.,...

    Keywords: active learningDiscussionLarge classSummary

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    An Introduction to the Squirrel-Net Teaching Modules
    Although course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) are gaining popularity in biology, most are designed for benchwork-based laboratory courses while few focus on field-based skills....

    Keywords: ecologybehaviortrade-offsScientific ProcessSquirrel-Net

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    Implementing an online module about impacts of pollution from gold mining in an undergraduate ecology course in the Pacific Northwest, USA
    Students learn about biomagnification of toxins, build skills in graphical interpretation, and apply field methods to tackle complex issues about small-scale gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon....

    Keywords: food websmercury biogeochemistryBioaccumulationbiomagnificationPeruvian Amazon

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    Implementing an online module about tropical seed dispersal and restoration in an undergraduate ecology course in the Pacific Northwest, USA
    This “Spreading Seeds” case study introduces students to ecology of seed dispersal mutualisms, and their importance for forest restoration. The implementation plan teaching notes, and associated...

    Keywords: mutualismRestoration Ecologyspecies interactionHabitat fragmentationSeed dispersalforest recovery

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    Navigating Bacterial Changes in Aging Organisms: Graphs, Patterns, and Models
    Aging is an incredibly important area of research, and recent biological advances implicate the intestines in aging pathologies. Given that the gut harbors an immense amount of an organism’s...

    Keywords: statisticsgraphingmathematics for life sciencesmathexponential growthPrecalculus

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    When tests disagree, how do I know if I have COVID-19?
    Students will learn about infectious disease and the immune response to infection by investigating different types of tests (PCR, antigen, and antibody tests) to detect the SARS-CoV-2 viral genetic...

    Keywords: geneticsVision and Changeintroductory biologyinfectious diseasemolecular biologycore competenciesRT-PCRviruscore conceptsnon-majors biologySARS-CoV-2antibodyAntigenImmunoReachmolecular DiagnosticsCOVID-19 transmission

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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...

    Keywords: mental healthgratitudepositive psychologydegree commitment

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    A Remote-Learning Framework for Student Research Projects: Using Datasets to Teach Experimental Design, Data Analysis and Science Communication
    Remote learning often requires an alternative to hands-on, student-designed research projects. To this end, we created a package of scaffolded assignments to support introductory students through...

    Keywords: population growthphysiologyecotoxicologyphotosynthesis

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    A Tough Choice in Watershed Management
    In this Team-based activity, students work in teams, playing the role of natural resource managers who must decide in which region to invest limited funding for nutrient reduction in streams....

    Keywords: Stream ecologyBox PlotsSpreadsheetGroup cooperative learningTeam-based LearningBiogeochemical cycles

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    Sequence Similarity Resource Adaptation: Exploring Ebola Virus
    This adaptation of the sequence similarity resource provides biology students with a basic set of bioinformatics concepts and tools. These concepts and tools are used to explore relationships...

    Keywords: phylogeneticsbioinformaticsEbolasequencingFASTANCBINIBLSEalgorithmsincubatorsBLASTmultiple sequence alignmentsequence similarityBLOSUM scoring matrixneighbor-joining distance matrixCourseSourcephylogram

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    Environmental Drivers of Ecosystem Carbon Fluxes from Minutes to Years
    Students build on fundamental concepts of ecosystem production and carbon cycling, combining this knowledge with open long-term data from ecological and meteorological networks to uncover the...

    Keywords: climate changecarbonPlant EcologyBiogeochemistryResource Typecarbon cyclingproductivitynet ecosystem productiongross primary productionecosystem respirationcarbon fluxes

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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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    From Cre/LoxP to Fate Maps: Inclusive and Equitable Approaches for Engaging Developmental Biology Students in Experimental Design
    Engaging first generation underrepresented minority students in the process of inquiry in developmental biology is important to increase diversity in future graduate STEM education. One important...

    Keywords: experimental designC. elegansCre/LoxPFate mapheart developmentheart regenerationmousereporter constructzebrafish

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    Training future faculty in 30 minutes a week: A modular framework to provide just-in-time professional development to graduate teaching assistants
    Despite increasing recognition of the need to train the teaching assistants (TAs) teaching the majority of STEM lab sections, very few programs report offering sustained teaching professional...

    Keywords: professional developmentTA TrainingTeaching Assistants

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    A clicker-based case study that untangles student thinking about the processes in the central dogma
    The central dogma of biology is a foundational concept that provides a scaffold to understand how genetic information flows in biological systems. Despite its importance, undergraduate students...

    Keywords: mutationtranscriptionphenotypecentral dogmatranslationDNA replication

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    Sorry to Eat and Run: A Lesson Plan for Testing Trade-off in Squirrel Behavior Using Giving Up Densities (GUDs)
    All animals need to find and compete for food, shelter, and mates in order to survive and reproduce. They also need to avoid being eaten by predators. Optimal foraging theory provides a framework...

    Keywords: ecologyanimal behaviorAnimal form and functionAnimal nutritionSquirrel-Net

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    Using Musical Instruments to Model Negative Feedback in the Hypothalamo-Pituitary-Target Gland Axes
    Homeostasis and negative feedback are crucial, yet difficult, concepts for undergraduates, particularly in the context of the hypothalamo-pituitary axes. This interactive activity was designed to...

    Keywords: cell-cell communicationhomeostasisnegative feedback

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