Nonscience Majors Research Articles

Design of a Food Chemistry-Themed Course for Nonscience Majors

The physical science curriculum design at Georgia Gwinnett College requires a theme-based course (lecture and group work, and laboratory) for nonscience majors. Increased student engagement is anticipated when science topics are taught in the context of a topic of which students can select during course registration. This paper presents the course curriculum design, highlights laboratory experiments (designed and adapted) and field trips for a one-semester food chemistry course for nonscience majors. Student feedback on select assignments and laboratory activities is also presented.

Undergraduate students' perspectives on primary care.

Despite the need for more primary care physicians, the number of medical students choosing primary care careers remains lower than other specialties. While undergraduate premedical education is an essential component in the development of future physicians, little is known about undergraduate students' perspectives on becoming primary care physicians. To better understand the early factors in career selection, we asked premed and former premed students their perceptions of primary care. Open-ended, semistructured interviews were conducted with 58 undergraduate students who represented three different groups: those who were currently premed and science majors, those who were nonscience majors and were currently premed, and those who were formerly premed. Specifically, we asked, "Why do you think there is a shortage of people who go into primary care?" Undergraduates cited financial reasons, lack of "glamour," and the career being "uninteresting." Many believed that primary care lacked prestige, and others felt it had a negative stigma attached. Most had never even considered a career in primary care. A number of students also misunderstood what a career in primary care actually entailed. As early as freshman year in college, undergraduate students harbor misconceptions and negative opinions about primary care. Many of those who express interest in such a career seem to drop out of the premedical program. It is important to consider the early onset of these attitudes and a way to target this interested population when trying to address the shortage of primary care physicians.

Bacterial monologue: an engaging writing activity for nonscience majors.

The anthropocentric focus of microbiology has painted a negative image of the largely unknown bacterial community, when in reality bacteria play many more significant roles than influencing human health. It is important to convey this message to college students so that they can make informed decisions as an educated citizen. Non-major students taking a microbiology course however, may demonstrate poor interest and become further alienated by the abstract terminologies. Recent studies suggest that story writing may enhance scientific literacy, and role-play activities are effective means to engage students. Here, I combine these two strategies and introduce a writing activity in which students impersonate an assigned bacterium. Through this writing exercise, students demonstrated deeper understanding of key concepts in microbiology, greater appreciation of the broad roles of bacteria, and improved attitude towards science and science learning.

Photovoice as a Pedagogical Tool: Student Engagement in Undergraduate Introductory Chemistry for Nonscience Majors

Photovoice as a Pedagogical Tool: Student Engagement in Undergraduate Introductory Chemistry for Nonscience Majors

Erratum to: SCIENCE AND NON-SCIENCE UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ARGUMENTATION PERFORMANCE IN READING A SCIENCE NEWS REPORT

A scientifically literate person should be able to engage and critique science news reports about socioscientific issues from a variety of information sources. Such engagement involves critical thinking and argumentation skills to determine if claims made are justified by evidence and explained by reasonable explanations. This study explored university students’ critical thinking performance when they read science news reports. Undergraduate science/applied science (n = 52) and non-science (n = 52) majors were asked to select a science news report from Internet sources and then to read, critique, and make comments about its contents. The science and non-science majors’ comments and their quality were identified and assessed in terms of analyzing the argument elements—claims and warrants, counterclaims and warrants, rebuttals, qualifiers, and evidence. The results indicated there is significant difference in identifying and formulating evidence favoring science/applied science over non-science majors (p < .01). Quality of critical thinking associated with the strength of the arguments made indicated that science/applied science majors demonstrate significantly (p < 0.05) more advanced patterns than non-science majors. The results suggest that further studies into improving undergraduates’ concepts of evidence in the context of reading and critiquing science news reports are needed.

A Guided Inquiry on Hubble Plots and the Big Bang

In our science for non-science majors course “21st Century Physics,” we investigate modern “Hubble plots” (plots of velocity versus distance for deep space objects) in order to discuss the Big Bang, dark matter, and dark energy. There are two potential challenges that our students face when encountering these topics for the first time. The first challenge is in understanding and interpreting Hubble plots. The second is that some of our students have religious or cultural objections to the concept of a “Big Bang” or a universe that is billions of years old. This paper presents a guided inquiry exercise that was created with the goal of introducing students to Hubble plots and giving them the opportunity to discover for themselves why we believe our universe started with an explosion billions of years ago. The exercise is designed to be completed before the topics are discussed in the classroom. We did the exercise during a one hour and 45 minute “lab” time and it was done in groups of three or four students, but it would also work as an individual take-home assignment.

Effects of Guided Inquiry versus Lecture Instruction on Final Grade Distribution in a One-Semester Organic and Biochemistry Course

A comprehensive guided-inquiry approach was used in a combined organic and biochemistry course for prenursing and predietetics students rather than lecture. To assess its effectiveness, exam grades and final course grades of students in three instructional techniques were compared. The three groups were the following: (i) lecture only, (ii) lecture for the biochemistry portion and guided inquiry for the organic material, and (iii) all guided inquiry, all with the same instructor covering the same material and using the same style of assessments. When the final exam grades and the course grades of students were compared, guided-inquiry and partial guided-inquiry students had a statistically significant improvement in these grades over students taught by lecture only. This study demonstrates that guided inquiry is effective in nonscience majors’ classes, for which content is often tailored to the audience.

Engaging Non-Scientists in STEM Through Problem-Based Learning and Service Learning

This study follows the evolution of a single biology course designed for non-science majors. In its original design, the course used only traditional pedagogical techniques, such as lecture and textbook homework assignments. Over several iterations of the course, the class combined problem-based learning (PBL) and service learning to better support student knowledge. For this study, our goal was for students to learn biology concepts as they engaged in a lake cleanup project within the greater Chicago metropolitan area. Data sources consisted of pretest, posttest, and final exam scores to assess learning. The results suggest the combination of PBL and service learning led to gains in student learning.

Teaching Introductory Weather and Climate Using Popular Movies

ABSTRACT Addressing the need for an introductory atmospheric science course for nonscience majors, a course was developed that provides a general understanding of atmospheric processes by examining how meteorological events are portrayed in movies. The course also uses films to study the causes of, impacts associated with, and potential adaptations to climate change. Anonymous student course evaluations indicate that students believe incorporating movie clips into lectures helps them learn course material and generates positive student attitudes toward atmospheric science.

You and Your Oral Microflora: Introducing non-biology majors to their “forgotten organ”

With limited time available for laboratory activities, introductory science courses for non-science majors typically use the laboratory period to reinforce material that was previously presented during lecture. This practice was true of a human biology course at the University of Minnesota, in which most lab activities centered on organ dissections. To break from this mold, we designed a new laboratory module to introduce students to their &ldquo;forgotten organ&rdquo;, the human microbiome. We chose this topic partly due to the explosion of recent research in this area, as well as the opportunity to expose students to online tools and techniques. Student motivation arose from the opportunity to determine the types of microbes that might be growing inside their mouth, and piqued their interest in how microbes could positively affect their health. Through a series of activities, a group of students from a large-enrollment course sampled and analyzed a subset of their oral microflora.&nbsp; Using the NCBI BLAST tool, they were able to tentatively identify microbial sequences amplified using primers specific for 16S rRNA. The activities greatly expanded on topics covered only briefly in lecture and provided hands-on experience with scientific techniques. This module could be adapted to fit into a number of different formats. It has been used in an introductory biology course as a multi-week activity, and as a two-day activity with high school biology teachers. It could also be modified to be an in silico activity, with instructors guiding students to public databases to obtain sequence data.

ESTABLISHING THE EMPIRICAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NON-SCIENCE MAJORING UNDERGRADUATE LEARNERS’ SPATIAL THINKING SKILLS AND THEIR CONCEPTUAL ASTRONOMY KNOWLEDGE

A comunidade da educação em astronomia tem suposto de forma implícita que o aprendizado da astronomia consiste em um domínio conceitual fundamentado no raciocínio espacial. Como um primeiro passo para identificar formalmente uma relação empírica entre estas duas coisas, utilizamos como amostra os estudantes de graduação de carreiras não científicas de um curso exploratório em uma universidade norte-americana do meio-oeste de médio porte com programa de Doutorado em andamento, onde estes estudantes foram submetidos a um diagnóstico de raciocino espacial e conceitos astronômicos antes e depois do mesmo. As ferramentas utilizadas foram o Test Of Astronomy Standards (TOAST) e o questionário What do you know? Utilizando somente dados completamente consistentes para esta análise, nossa amostra consistiu de 86 estudantes de graduação. As melhoras, depois de normalizadas, do desempenho dos estudantes nos dois quesitos foram pequenas, 0.26 e 0.13 respectivamente. O raciocínio espacial dos estudantes foi medido utilizando um instrumento específico desenhado para este trabalho. As correlações entre os resultados dos testes astronômicos e este instrumento específico antes e depois do curso mostraram uma relação entre moderada e forte, sugerindo que a relação entre o raciocínio espacial e o conhecimento astronômico pode explicar até um 25% na variação no desempenho dos estudantes.

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHERS’ KNOWLEDGE OF MODEL FUNCTIONS AND MODELING PROCESSES: A COMPARISON OF SCIENCE AND NON-SCIENCE MAJORS

This study aimed to: (a) understand practicing teachers’ knowledge of model functions and modeling processes, (b) compare the similarities and differences between the knowledge of science and non-science major teachers, and (c) explore the possible reasons for the similarities and differences between the knowledge of these 2 groups. A 4-point Likert scale questionnaire was developed and used to measure the knowledge of 187 practicing elementary school teachers (94 science majors and 93 non-science majors) on model functions and modeling processes. The author selected 10 target teachers to conduct think-aloud interview and to explore their ranking. One month after completing the questionnaire, 28 volunteer teachers were selected for a follow-up interview to better understand the reasons for their responses. The results show that these teachers tend to agree or strongly agree with the items about model functions and modeling processes. The only significant difference between science and non-science majors was for the item “generating new ideas.” Qualitative analyses of the follow-up interviews and think-aloud results showed that teacher education and professional development did not focus on understanding and using models. Science-major teachers tended to formulate their responses with reference to specific models, while the non-science major teachers’ responses contained acquiescence bias. Finally, implications for science education are discussed.

UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS’ SCIENCE-RELATED IDEAS AS EMBEDDED IN THEIR ENVIRONMENTAL WORLDVIEWS

This study explored environmental worldviews of selected undergraduate students in Taiwan and located the associations of these worldviews with science. The “environment” is represented as nature or the natural world, as opposed to the social and spiritual world. The participants were undergraduate students (14 science and 15 nonscience majors) enrolled in a general science course at a southern Taiwanese university. A questionnaire and individual interviews were conducted in parallel to elicit in depth the students’ ideas/beliefs about nature, such as, to what construes nature, how it works, and how humans relate to nature. The responses were analyzed using a phenomenographic approach to emphasize the qualitative variation of the students’ views. The key findings based on their relations to science and science education were the following: (1) Most students seemed to immediately relate the topic of nature to science and thus sought to explain nature from a scientific perspective, yet their understanding of scientific concepts or metaphors, such as the balance of nature, was problematic; (2) a value-free perspective is evident among some students in viewing human-induced natural crises: What we should do is merely look at facts and let science tell us what we should and should not do. (3) The students generally expressed trust in science and technology and believed it to be the key to improving the condition of nature as well as human life.

A laboratory investigation of the effect of trumpet mouthpieces in an introductory musical acoustics course

In our introductory musical acoustics course for non-science majors, a major goal of the course is to introduce students to the principles of scientific thinking and investigation. Many students have preconceived ideas or beliefs about factors influencing the sounds produced by musical instruments. It is the role of the instructor to help students frame their ideas into scientifically testable experiments, which can be conducted in the laboratory. In our course, we have designed a laboratory activity to challenge students to explore the role of the mouthpiece of brass musical instruments. A parametric model of a trumpet mouthpiece is customized by students in order to investigate the effects of changing mouthpiece geometry on the trumpet acoustics. The models are manufactured on a 3D printer and used in the laboratory to make input impedance measurements. Students compare their quantitative results to the qualitative conceptions they held before completing the laboratory investigation.

Time-frequency analysis for acoustics education and for listening to whales in the Gulf of Mexico

Time-frequency plots continue to be used in many varied applications. One particularly advantageous use is in acoustics courses accessible to non-science majors, students who are often frightened of mathematics and/or physics. All musicians as well as many others can read and understand music scores (time-frequency plots). Time-frequency plots are extremely useful in explaining the differences in timbre of the same pitch coming from different musical instrument families, from individual instruments themselves, and from different human voices. Examples are given from the first of a UNO two-semester sequence on the Physics of Music (textbook by Rossing!). The second semester of this sequence includes recording and reproduction of music, and time-frequency plots are again very useful. Investigation of acoustic signals for research also benefits from the use of time-frequency plots. The study of marine mammals is enhanced by analysis of underwater acoustic recordings. Examples of both the sounds of and the time-frequency plots for sperm whale clicks in the northern Gulf of Mexico are presented. Seismic airgun shots from oil industry exploration can be heard on the recordings as well as the whale clicks.

Investigating Art Objects through Collaborative Student Research Projects in an Undergraduate Chemistry and Art Course

Inspired in part by Chemistry Collaborations, Workshops, and Community of Scholars workshops, the Chemistry and Art course offered at Ithaca College is team-taught by a chemist and an art historian, underscoring the complementary nature of the two disciplines. The course, populated primarily by nonscience majors, highlights the importance of using both historical knowledge and empirical measurements to address particular questions about a work of art. The course culminates in a collaborative student research project in which students must select a nonaccessioned art object, generate a series of questions about the object, and subsequently use available scientific tools to attempt to address these questions. Undergraduates are exposed to a variety of techniques used in the analysis of art objects, including visible and infrared spectroscopy, gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, and microscopy. The Chemistry and Art course at Ithaca College will be discussed, and two case studies from the collaborative student research projects will be summarized.

Finding Out What They Really Think: Assessing Non-Science Majors’ Views of the Nature of Science

As institutions of higher learning are increasingly held accountable for student outcomes, faculty are faced with the challenge to clearly articulate and assess what students should learn in their courses. We report on the assessment of a liberal studies learning outcome related to the nature of science, which involved 178 students from 41 academic non-science majors at DePaul University in Chicago. Students were shown a video recording of an interview with a research scientist and asked to respond to prompts about falsifiable predictions, uncertainty, and the functions of hypotheses, observations, and reasoning. We found that students held a wide range of views and misconceptions about the nature of science. Responses were, on average, at a “developing” level (a score of 2 on a scale from 1–4). We discuss several possible changes to curriculum and pedagogy to address these misconceptions based on a review of the science education research literature.

Investigating the relationship between college students’ acceptance of evolution and tree thinking understanding

Recent research suggests a relationship between understanding of macroevolutionary principles (such as phylogenetics) and acceptance of evolution in biology majors. The purpose of this study was to quantitatively investigate the relationship between ability to interpret phylogenetic trees (tree thinking) and acceptance of evolutionary theory for 92 university non-science majors before and after a general education biology course. We found that the majority of students taking the course held strong religious affiliations but were still open to having their mind changed and accepted evolution as a valid scientific theory. Students started and ended the course with a relatively high acceptance of evolutionary theory, but the nature of their acceptance changed significantly and we documented several such shifts. Additionally, we found a significant increase in students’ tree thinking understanding after instruction and a slight, but significant, correlation between evolution acceptance and tree thinking understanding. Our investigation demonstrated that targeted evolution instruction using a tree thinking approach may alter students’ acceptance of evolution, even if the students initially hold strong anti-evolution ideas. By learning how college students understand and develop ideas about evolution using a visual approach, we can better target areas of confusion and begin forming guidelines for effective evolution instruction.

Designing and Incorporating Green Chemistry Courses at a Liberal Arts College To Increase Students’ Awareness and Interdisciplinary Collaborative Work

Two green chemistry courses have been introduced into the liberal arts curriculum at Susquehanna University. Green chemistry was integrated into an existing course, Chemical Concepts, and offered as Green Chemical Concepts for nonscience majors. This course is designed to instill an appreciation for green chemistry in a large and diverse group of students. The course follows a separate interactive lecture and laboratory format, consists of an atom economy workshop, and ends with students’ collaborative group presentations on “life cycle assessment of a greener product”. A chemistry elective, Green Chemistry, was also developed and offered to science majors. It is important that students from various areas of science be exposed to green chemistry, as many innovative science discoveries are made today through interdisciplinary collaborative work. This course follows a unique workshop style, integrating lectures with laboratory activities, and ends with student proposal presentations on “designing a greener ...

Effect of Different Types of Small-Group Activities on Students’ Conversations

Teaching reform efforts in chemistry education often involve engaging students in small-group activities of different types. This study focused on the analysis of how activity type affected the nature of group conversations. In particular, we analyzed the small-group conversations of students enrolled in a chemistry course for nonscience majors. Group work in this course was designed and facilitated by preservice teachers enrolled in a science teaching methods class. Our results suggest that the types of activities in which students were engaged influenced the extent to which group talk focused on content-related issues. In particular, activities that asked students to compare and contrast different systems, different ideas, or predicted and actual behaviors were often associated with higher student engagement in constructing, transforming, and applying knowledge to make sense of concepts and ideas discussed in class.