Variants in Biology Education: What can we learn from pandemics?

From March 23-25, 2023, the 8th Life Discovery - Doing Science Biology Education Conference (LDC) will convene at Florida A&M University on the theme, "Variants in Biology Education: What can we learn from pandemics?" This event is co-organized by the Ecological Society of America (ESA), the Botanical Society of America (BSA), and the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE). There are real impacts on people's lives and decisions when scientifically based information is not understood and/or rejected. The conference will draw from socio-behavioral research which can be applied to pedagogy. The conference theme wrestles with three key issues impacting teaching and learning which form three thematic tracks: a) adapting to and teaching disease ecology; b) science misinformation, and c) research innovation and careers. These tracks will highlight promising practices, programs, and strategies that can be implemented in the classroom while fostering a longer term effort to improve biology education and career readiness. It will also build on the previous conference which focused on inclusive educational strategies critical to engaging both science and non-science majors, especially underrepresented minority populations. By facilitating discovery and exchange of tools and resources for STEM and media literacy, the event will position faculty to help generations of digital natives who rely on social media for information to combat false information and extend far beyond the classroom to students' homes and communities. NSF funds will support the connection and participation of under-resourced faculty in organismal biology and environmental sciences from minority-serving institutions, community colleges and primarily undergraduate institutions, who are frequently isolated across the US. The conference will provide a forum for educators to engage in a discipline-based national conversation three years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic inexorably rocked the world. Its impact on education has been no less profound. The conference organizers will take advantage of this opportunity to use very real phenomena backed by lived experience to discuss key ideas in ecology and evolutionary biology that have previously been difficult to teach. At the same time, this conference will provide a platform for educators to discuss approaches to teaching the difference between fake news and learning real science. An exchange of strategies will be beneficial so educators might respond more effectively in different sociopolitical climates to a fast-evolving scientific phenomenon and an even faster "viral resistance" to information based on science. Made visible by the pandemic, innovations in science and research are introducing new questions that can now be asked and answered. The conference will highlight opportunities for emerging STEM and STEM-adjacent careers fueled by technological advancements such as those offered by new RNA research, as well as key findings in the social sciences which are mobilizing new understandings of vulnerability and resilience globally. The conference will also extend education reform efforts propelled by "Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education" (AAAS) a decade ago and highlight recent advances to provide a cohesive and modern approach to ecology education through ESA's Four-Dimensional Ecology Education (4DEE) framework. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.