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Beyond the Cell: Using Multiscalar Topics to Bring Interdisciplinarity into Undergraduate Cellular Biology Courses

Western science has grown increasingly reductionistic and, in parallel, the undergraduate life sciences curriculum has become disciplinarily fragmented. While reductionistic approaches have led to landmark discoveries, many of the most exciting scientific advances in the late 20th century have occur...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Weber, Carolyn F.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: American Society for Cell Biology 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4909348/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27146162
http://dx.doi.org/10.1187/cbe.15-11-0234
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author Weber, Carolyn F.
author_facet Weber, Carolyn F.
author_sort Weber, Carolyn F.
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description Western science has grown increasingly reductionistic and, in parallel, the undergraduate life sciences curriculum has become disciplinarily fragmented. While reductionistic approaches have led to landmark discoveries, many of the most exciting scientific advances in the late 20th century have occurred at disciplinary interfaces; work at these interfaces is necessary to manage the world’s looming problems, particularly those that are rooted in cellular-level processes but have ecosystem- and even global-scale ramifications (e.g., nonsustainable agriculture, emerging infectious diseases). Managing such problems requires comprehending whole scenarios and their emergent properties as sums of their multiple facets and complex interrelationships, which usually integrate several disciplines across multiple scales (e.g., time, organization, space). This essay discusses bringing interdisciplinarity into undergraduate cellular biology courses through the use of multiscalar topics. Discussing how cellular-level processes impact large-scale phenomena makes them relevant to everyday life and unites diverse disciplines (e.g., sociology, cell biology, physics) as facets of a single system or problem, emphasizing their connections to core concepts in biology. I provide specific examples of multiscalar topics and discuss preliminary evidence that using such topics may increase students’ understanding of the cell’s position within an ecosystem and how cellular biology interfaces with other disciplines.
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spelling pubmed-49093482016-06-24 Beyond the Cell: Using Multiscalar Topics to Bring Interdisciplinarity into Undergraduate Cellular Biology Courses Weber, Carolyn F. CBE Life Sci Educ Essay Western science has grown increasingly reductionistic and, in parallel, the undergraduate life sciences curriculum has become disciplinarily fragmented. While reductionistic approaches have led to landmark discoveries, many of the most exciting scientific advances in the late 20th century have occurred at disciplinary interfaces; work at these interfaces is necessary to manage the world’s looming problems, particularly those that are rooted in cellular-level processes but have ecosystem- and even global-scale ramifications (e.g., nonsustainable agriculture, emerging infectious diseases). Managing such problems requires comprehending whole scenarios and their emergent properties as sums of their multiple facets and complex interrelationships, which usually integrate several disciplines across multiple scales (e.g., time, organization, space). This essay discusses bringing interdisciplinarity into undergraduate cellular biology courses through the use of multiscalar topics. Discussing how cellular-level processes impact large-scale phenomena makes them relevant to everyday life and unites diverse disciplines (e.g., sociology, cell biology, physics) as facets of a single system or problem, emphasizing their connections to core concepts in biology. I provide specific examples of multiscalar topics and discuss preliminary evidence that using such topics may increase students’ understanding of the cell’s position within an ecosystem and how cellular biology interfaces with other disciplines. American Society for Cell Biology 2016 /pmc/articles/PMC4909348/ /pubmed/27146162 http://dx.doi.org/10.1187/cbe.15-11-0234 Text en © 2016 C. F. Weber. CBE—Life Sciences Education © 2016 The American Society for Cell Biology. This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). It is available to the public under an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0). “ASCB®”and “The American Society for Cell Biology®” are registered trademarks of The American Society for Cell Biology.
spellingShingle Essay
Weber, Carolyn F.
Beyond the Cell: Using Multiscalar Topics to Bring Interdisciplinarity into Undergraduate Cellular Biology Courses
title Beyond the Cell: Using Multiscalar Topics to Bring Interdisciplinarity into Undergraduate Cellular Biology Courses
title_full Beyond the Cell: Using Multiscalar Topics to Bring Interdisciplinarity into Undergraduate Cellular Biology Courses
title_fullStr Beyond the Cell: Using Multiscalar Topics to Bring Interdisciplinarity into Undergraduate Cellular Biology Courses
title_full_unstemmed Beyond the Cell: Using Multiscalar Topics to Bring Interdisciplinarity into Undergraduate Cellular Biology Courses
title_short Beyond the Cell: Using Multiscalar Topics to Bring Interdisciplinarity into Undergraduate Cellular Biology Courses
title_sort beyond the cell: using multiscalar topics to bring interdisciplinarity into undergraduate cellular biology courses
topic Essay
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4909348/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27146162
http://dx.doi.org/10.1187/cbe.15-11-0234
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