General Biology for Non-Majors

Hello, my name is Noah Gardner and this was my shotgun approach to OFAR. Many students come into non-majors biology thinking that they hate science, that science isn't for them, so I took a multifaceted approach to centering my students and their identity. I sought to have them not only do science themselves but also to see why some of these identity biases might be there - that science has been gatekept by the old guard for centuries and used as a tool of oppression to maintain white supremacy. I sought to make the social issues in biology entrenched into discussions of all topics. I also wanted to give students the chance to do some course creation themselves, not only by rewriting some old quiz questions of mine but also by generating H5P content on Librestudio, which are now embedded into learning modules for their peers and for future students. Finally, we put these skills together to have students talk about these topics from an informed scientific perspective. After students practiced plenty talking science to each other, I had students try to practice engaging with someone who is misinformed. That is really hard, I know! The hope is to empower students by giving them a skill: reading, writing, and talking science, that they'll take with them from non-majors biology.