The 8th Annual Life Discovery Conference 2023: Variants in Biology Education: What Can we Learn from Pandemics?

What can we learn from pandemics? That was the focus of the 8th Life Discovery—Doing Science Biology Education Conference (LDC) held March 23–25, 2023 at the Florida A&M University (FAMU) Sustainability Institute (Florida, USA). A total of 71 participants, comprising high school educators and college faculty, convened to discuss emerging themes in biology and STEM education. The LDC was sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Biointeractive. It is a project of the Life Discovery Ed Partners: co-organized by the Ecological Society of America (ESA), Botanical Society of America, and Society for the Study of Evolution. For the first time, the LDC was hosted at a Historically Black University (HBCU). Support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) provided travel grants for 29 college faculty from diverse backgrounds and institutions, including 23 from either community colleges; tribal colleges and universities, HBCUs, and minority-serving institutions; or both. NSF support also provided registration support for 14 faculty and keynote speakers.

The 2023 LDC theme was “Variants in Biology Education: What can we learn from pandemics?” Given how the world responded to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic within a highly politicized landscape, science communication and combating misinformation was of utmost importance. Biology education will need to adapt just as quickly and will need to consider the pace of change and innovation to keep students informed and prepared to contribute to the global workforce.

These questions were addressed through over 50 presentations, ranging from data-driven research to demonstrations of classroom lesson plans and curriculum design. Conference events aimed to train participants in additional pedagogical techniques to employ in the classroom. The conference offered: 2 keynote presentations, 17 short presentations, 10 workshops, 28 roundtable discussions, and 1 networking session with five topics. The Education Share Fair Roundtable sessions are a unique feature of the LDC in which participants can share lesson plans and teaching ideas that are in development to garner feedback from their peers and incorporate that feedback prior to deployment in their classrooms.

Additionally, networking sessions gave participants the opportunity to collect and discuss the implementation of ideas gathered during the conference. A cross-cutting theme of all Networking Sessions was the importance of bringing science closer to students' daily lives, making it more approachable and relevant, and less about research that is occurring outside of the typical student frame of reference. Discussions were organized into the following topics; summaries of participant dialogue follow each topic.

The 2023 Life Discovery—Doing Science Conference continued the conversation among educators about how to address the gaps in STEM fields and garner student interest. We noted that student interests can be fostered through hands-on experiences, opportunities to practice career relevant skills, and bringing personal connections to data through community science and stronger connections to the people behind the data. With these insights, we believe that students will cultivate their innate interests in STEM and be better prepared for the ever-changing and adapting workplace of biology.