PS 1-1 - Key elements of impactful implementation of community-engaged biology education: A practical guide to broader participation

Background/Question/Methods

Global sustainability challenges present an opportunity to retool how we teach fundamental biological principles. Additionally, diversification and attrition from STEM fields demand a critical examination of how we teach biology in higher education. Increasingly, there is a growing awareness that impactful biology education involves focusing on applied, timely, and societally relevant material (among other things). Calls to retool how we approach biology education are not new; recently, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) released their influential Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: A Call-to-Action report in 2011. The report stresses the importance of certain competencies including highlighting the interdisciplinary nature of biology, the ability to communicate and collaborate with other disciplines, and harnessing the relationship between science and society. Community-engaged biology education represents one strong way to showcase the relationship between science and society.

In this study, we reviewed the biology education literature and asked: what are key structural elements to successfully implemented community-engaged biology curricula? We also present a few case study examples from capstone projects from a sustainable food systems capstone course to highlight tangible student and community benefits and to provide a roadmap for implementation structure.

Results/Conclusions

Our review of the literature revealed many common traits of successfully implemented community-engaged biology curricula. These traits include projects that: provide mutual benefit for all participants, leverage institutional offices and expertise that intentionally connect faculty with community using ongoing relationships, and house community-engaged biology curricula within faculty research programs. We also found that community-engaged projects described as mutually beneficial for students, instructors, and community members were instrumental for creating long-lasting rapport and productive relationships. In one example case study, students developed a podcast focused on understanding barriers and opportunities for urban agriculture and compared these contexts across a geographic gradient engaging community members in St. Paul, MN and Orlando, FL. Our case studies highlight the opportunity to create impactful and genuine connections between students and community that can influence and inspire both parties in their respective fields or career paths. We end with a proposal to create a community-engaged biology curricula implementation help line as a part of the NSF-funded Training Undergraduate Biologists through urban Agriculture Research Coordination Network. We envision this help line will provide faculty with resources to increase the accessibility of community-engaged biology and benefit students and community alike.