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Stem cells and society: an undergraduate course exploring the intersections among science, religion, and law.

ABSTRACT: The intersection of science and our society has led to legal and ethical issues in which we all play a part. To support development of scientific literacy, college science courses need to engage students in difficult dialogues around ethical issues. We describe a new course, Stem Cells and Society, in which students explore the basic biology of stem cell research and the controversy surrounding it. As part of the course, we highlight the nature of science, looking at the methods and norms within the scientific community. To gain a perspective on the current stem cell controversy, we examine the public debates in the 1970s surrounding in vitro fertilization, the stem cell initiative in Missouri, and the personal and religious viewpoints that have emerged relative to the stem cell debate. In the Stem Cells and Society course, students are challenged to develop and clarify their own personal positions concerning embryonic stem cell research. These positions are grounded in science, religion or personal philosophy, and law.

SUBMITTER: Pierret C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2649653 | biostudies-literature | 2009

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Stem cells and society: an undergraduate course exploring the intersections among science, religion, and law.

Pierret Chris C Friedrichsen Patricia P

CBE life sciences education 20090101 1

The intersection of science and our society has led to legal and ethical issues in which we all play a part. To support development of scientific literacy, college science courses need to engage students in difficult dialogues around ethical issues. We describe a new course, Stem Cells and Society, in which students explore the basic biology of stem cell research and the controversy surrounding it. As part of the course, we highlight the nature of science, looking at the methods and norms within ...[more]

PMID: 19255139

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Project description:BackgroundSeminal reports, based on recommendations by educators, scientists, and in collaboration with students, have called for undergraduate curricula to engage students in some of the same practices as scientists-one of which is communicating science with a general, non-scientific audience (SciComm). Unfortunately, very little research has focused on helping students develop these skills. An important early step in creating effective and efficient curricula is understanding what baseline skills students have prior to instruction. Here, we used the Essential Elements for Effective Science Communication (EEES) framework to survey the SciComm skills of students in an environmental science course in which they had little SciComm training.ResultsOur analyses revealed that, despite not being given the framework, students included several of the 13 elements, especially those which were explicitly asked for in the assignment instructions. Students commonly targeted broad audiences composed of interested adults, aimed to increase the knowledge and awareness of their audience, and planned and executed remote projects using print on social media. Additionally, students demonstrated flexibility in their skills by slightly differing their choices depending on the context of the assignment, such as creating more engaging content than they had planned for.ConclusionsThe students exhibited several key baseline skills, even though they had minimal training on the best practices of SciComm; however, more support is required to help students become better communicators, and more work in different contexts may be beneficial to acquire additional perspectives on SciComm skills among a variety of science students. The few elements that were not well highlighted in the students' projects may not have been as intuitive to novice communicators. Thus, we provide recommendations for how educators can help their undergraduate science students develop valuable, prescribed SciComm skills. Some of these recommendations include helping students determine the right audience for their communication project, providing opportunities for students to try multiple media types, determining the type of language that is appropriate for the audience, and encouraging students to aim for a mix of communication objectives. With this guidance, educators can better prepare their students to become a more open and communicative generation of scientists and citizens.Supplementary informationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40594-021-00304-0.

Project description:Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many universities struggle to engage students while implementing a distance-based teaching/learning approach and to provide hands-on activities to students enrolled in STEM classes. Implementing service-focused activities that can be conducted by the students remotely can overcome these struggles. The goals of this study were to 1) implement citizen science activities focused on water quality using three commercially available low-cost test strips (2:1, 5:1, and 16:1) while teaching four undergraduate engineering courses at the University of Mississippi (UM) during a pandemic event, and 2) evaluate the acceptability and validate the results obtained. Eighty-five undergraduate students (citizen scientists) and five research scientists (control group) collected two water samples (with triplicates) after receiving detailed step-by-step written guidelines and video tutorials. One hundred twenty tap water samples were collected from private households across Lafayette County and its surrounding counties and multiple buildings on campus. Five laboratory fortified blank (LBF) samples were implemented to validate the results. While the academic background of the participants did not impact the results (p > 0.05), the results obtained using the different test strips were statistically different (p < 0.05). In fact, results obtained using the 2:1 and the 5:1 test strips were close to the LFBs, while, except for the higher concentration of Total Alkalinity (40 mg/L CaCO3), results obtained using the 16:1 test strips were significantly different than the LFBs. Results (in terms of pH, Nitrate, and Total Chlorine) obtained by the citizen scientists using the 2:1 and 5:1 test strips were consistent with those reported in the annual drinking water quality reports from UM and municipalities included in the investigated region. Overall, this activity was well received by the students. Approximately 75% of them agreed that this hands-on activity was a positive experience while struggling to attend face-to-face classes.

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Stem cells and society: an undergraduate course exploring the intersections among science, religion, and law.

Publications

Stem cells and society: an undergraduate course exploring the intersections among science, religion, and law.

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