What is in this? Students Deliberate on Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals Found in Everyday Healthcare Items to Build Democratic Skills

In helping our students become informed and active members of society, it is necessary that they develop certain skills that will empower them to improve their community and governance. These skills include communication, collaboration, and application of information. One way of helping students develop these important skills is through deliberative pedagogy. In this article, we present the curriculum for a small group activity called Deliberative Democracy (DD). Here we describe one DD activity that was iteratively developed over five years for an introductory biology course. In this DD activity, students were asked to develop a policy statement that addresses the question: “What kind of regulations should be placed on cosmetics that contain potential endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs)?” We incorporate multiple strategies in this activity, including readings, videos, worksheets, clicker questions, small group and individual work, and whole class discussions. This activity supports students in developing important democratic skills and provides an opportunity to apply course content to real- world issues.