The climate crisis is a growing concern for many people, especially those who are of college age, making it an important and pressing issue to explore in honors courses. Eco-Art: Using Art to Reconcile with the Climate Crisis, a University of New Mexico (UNM) Honors College course, integrates the disciplines of art and environmental justice to…

There is growing recognition of the importance of engaging postsecondary students in experiences that challenge them to solve complex socioscientific problems, transdisciplinary in nature, requiring students to integrate and synthesize knowledge, skills, and ways of thinking across disciplinary boundaries. Yet these student experiences are…

In life history methodologies, 'human' lives appear to take primacy over other lives. Within science education literature, life history methods often are approached as reflective tools to make meaning out of teachers' pedagogical practices and commitments. In the present research, we tinker with life history research, to follow its performative…

Over two years, a graduate diploma program in science communication was designed and delivered by a university in the Republic of South Africa with assistance from a university in Australia. Building on the Australian program, the design incorporated cross-cultural and Indigenous Knowledge elements in keeping with the ethos of the South African…

Growing demands and expectations on the side of policy makers and the public have changed the conditions for academics' engagement in public discussions. At the same time, risks related to this engagement for the professional and even private lives of academics have become apparent. Conducting a survey experiment among 4091 tenured professors in…

Traditional biology curricula depict science as an objective field, overlooking the important influence that human values and biases have on what is studied and who can be a scientist. We can work to address this shortcoming by incorporating "ideological awareness" into the curriculum, which is an understanding of biases, stereotypes,…

As college science educators, we must prepare all future college graduates to be engaged, science-literate citizens. Yet data suggest that most college biology classes as currently taught do little to make science truly useful for students' lives and provide few opportunities for students to practice skills needed to be key decision makers in…

We share a case study on our use of three reflective questions to demonstrate ways in which simple questions can be coded to reveal rich evidence of impact and engagement. At the end of a three-hour inclusive teaching practices workshop for 23 faculty and administrators from a single science department, 22 participants completed an anonymous…

'Threshold concepts' have recently been identified as a key component for higher or university level teaching in science communication, concepts which can offer a 'transformative' experience amongst students, whilst also creating a sense of discomfort. In this research article, we examine data gathered via two qualitative focus groups and a…

As humanity around the globe enters the third decade of the 21st century, immense technological change is more profound than any previous time with pursuant massive social change. Central to this change is the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0). Three revolutions have gone before: mechanisation, mass production, and simple…

Science and society are inseparably linked, shaping each other in ways that define our world, emphasizing the need to teach science for empowering students capable of taking meaningful action toward building a sustainable and just society. Developing sustainability competencies in students is an important step toward this goal, with controversial…

Purpose: Goal 4.7 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) explicitly frames education as an enabler of change and a means to achieve all SDGs. This study aims to explore the nature and culture of science as an academic discipline and its capacity for the integration of education for sustainable development (ESD). Design/methodology/approach:…

Between 2005 and 2015 a series of science, technology and innovation policies were deployed in Argentina among which academic research collaborations with industry was particularly fostered. This paper studies the effect of those policies on newer researchers, defined as those with PhD or postdoctoral scholarships, looking at their motivations to…

Hydraulic fracturing ('fracking'), like other complex social and environmental issues, is a controversy about science which raises educational questions about how best to prepare young people to understand, respond to and, where necessary, act (or not) in response. It raises political questions. We present a state-of-the-art review of research…

Storytelling in chemistry as a pedagogical tool provides an alternative learning format for students to discover more about the people behind STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) innovations that impact our society. However, there is a dearth in the literature on what influence storytelling pedagogy could have on STEM…