Undergraduate Biology Education Research Gordon Research Conference: A Meeting Report

Abstract

This report provides a broad overview of the 2019 Undergraduate Biology Education Research Gordon Research Conference, titled “Achieving Widespread Improvement in Undergraduate Education,” and the associated Gordon Research Seminar, highlighting major themes that cut across invited talks, poster presentations, and informal discussions.

Public acceptance of evolution in the United States, 1985–2020

“…The influence of participation in college science courses increased over the same period, demonstrating the importance of the uniquely American requirement for general education at the baccalaureate level. From the 1980s, with John Moore's seminal "Science as a Way of Knowing" series of essays on the teaching of undergraduate biology to a recent Gordon Conference on understanding undergraduate biology education, biologists have been debating how to improve undergraduate education (Austin, 2018;Dolan et al, 2020;Society for Integrative Comparative Biology, n.d.). Notably, teaching evolution was central to Moore's project, as well as to subsequent efforts by the AAAS, the National Research Council, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and others.…”