Education Commons^™

Service Learning As Inquiry In An Undergraduate Science Course, Kelsie M. Bernot, Amy E. Kulesza, Judith S. Ridgway

Faculty Publications

To engage students in applying scientific process skills to real-world issues, we implemented a service-learning project model in our undergraduate introductory biology course for science majors. This model illustrates how we integrate inquiry inside and outside of the classroom through four steps: service, learning, classroom, and community. Out-of-class activities engaged students in serving the community (Service step) while deepening their learning experience beyond what they would learn in a classroom (Learning step). To connect the service-learning project with scientific process skills, students were asked to identify problems that our community partners were trying to solve, identify proposed solutions, and design …