Laboratory courses can serve as important avenues to equitably support introductory biology students to develop foundational scientific literacy skills while experiencing the authentic research process. We present a model for an equity-focused redesign of an introductory organismal biology laboratory course at a teaching institution with limited research infrastructure. We incorporated elements of inquiry, structure, and climate into our three redesigned course components: weekly research investigations, skill-building assignments, and student-designed group projects. Students were trained in the research process through weekly experiments using locally relevant model organisms, collecting and analyzing novel data and writing brief results sections in the conventions of a research journal article. Student groups then collaborated to complete a student-designed research project and poster presentation using one of the model organisms. Through weekly inquiry labs and practice in skill-building assignments, most students in the sample mastered skills in analyzing, graphing, and writing about experimental results. Notably, students mastered skills that were practiced more frequently throughout the lab course, demonstrating the value of repeated and scaffolded practice. Students reported significant gains in self-efficacy and science identity, as well as sense of project ownership. Student gains were influenced by instructor but not their major or the semester in which they took the course, and growth occurred across students regardless of their incoming score on the presemester survey. This intentional course design model, combined with consistent expectations for instructors across multiple sections, has the potential to equitably support students with a range of prior knowledge and experiences to make meaningful gains in science literacy skills during an introductory semester.