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Restoration of coastal dunes following tropical storm events often requires renourishment of sand substrate dredged from offshore sources, although dredging has well‐described negative ecological impacts and high economic costs. As a potential solution, recycled glass sand (cullet) made from crushed glass bottles has been proposed as a potential replacement for dredging. However, glass sand substrates may have limited ability to provide support to coastal plant communities due to the absence of native soil microbial communities. To explore the potential use of glass sand as a substrate for dune plants in the Northern Gulf of Mexico, we compared the growth of Sea oats (Uniola paniculata), Beach morning‐glory (Ipomoea imperati), and Railroad vine (I. pes‐caprae) in glass sand to growth in live beach sand. To determine if inoculation of glass sand with native soil microbial communities improved survival, growth, and biomass production, we also tested plant growth in glass sand with native microbial amendments. Overall, we found no difference in the survival of the three dune species across three soil treatments and weak differences in plant growth and biomass production across our soil substrates. Our results suggest that glass sand substrates may be a viable option for coastal dune restoration, with limited differences between live beach sand, glass sand, and glass sand inoculated with native soil microbes. Restoration and replenishment of coastal dunes using glass sand as a substrate following tropical storms or sea‐level rise may allow coastal managers to reduce the economic and ecological damage associated with offshore sediment dredging. 

Students were not able to recognize the inherent gender implied by terms such as “woman” though they frequently corrected text about an infant’s gender. This language is common in textbooks, and this paper shows that more work is needed to rid the biology curriculum of implied equality between an individual’s gender and their sex characteristics. 

Environmental pollution is a global threat that is especially prevalent in heavily industrialized and urbanized areas. Pollution can be found in many forms, such as natural and synthetic pollutants from natural and anthropogenic processes. These impact individual, population, and ecosystem health. Additionally, urbanization and industrialization create landscape heterogeneity, which alters socioecological dynamics within environments—often through intentional and systematic processes. For humans, the subjection to and impacts of both pollution and land distribution have disproportionate effects on members of low-income and marginalized communities. Environmental injustice occurs when systemic biases like racism and classism fuel inequalities and inequities among individuals and their communities. The current activity combines predictive graphing and group discussions to help reinforce basic principles of environmental pollution and the sociocultural underpinnings that increase risks of exposure and impacts, using real-life examples of environmental injustice such as the Flint Water Crisis and Cancer Alley Louisiana. Utilizing the “Mapping for Environmental Justice” website, students will predict the cumulative environmental injustice burden across the State of Virginia, resulting from imbalanced land distribution, and compare public health data to examine those to be considered “at risk” based on various demographic characteristics. Students will then think critically and discuss the decision-making behind societal pollution and land management, which influence the presence and intensity of environmental injustices. 

First-generation college students often experience greater social alienation and marginalization due to a mismatch of their cultural values compared to those of their university and often report lower academic satisfaction and sense of belonging. The effects on sense of belonging and satisfaction are intensified when first-generation college students have identities that intersect with other stigmatized social and cultural identities, like low socioeconomic status, Black or Latinx racial identities or religious identities, specifically for STEM majors. Students’ holistic health and well-being, including their sense of belonging, is highly correlated to their academic achievement, persistence, and overall student success, especially for underrepresented minority groups. However, there has been limited consideration for the nuanced experiences of first-generation college students with multiple stigmatized identities, and for how the academic STEM environment shapes student’s perceptions of inclusivity considering their social identities. To address these concerns, we used the Bioecological Systems theory to contextualize drivers of sense of belonging for students with stigmatized social and cultural identities by allowing space to explicitly consider institutional, departmental, classroom and societal-level phenomena that may operate to erode or fortify belonging for some individuals over others. Findings were organized contextually first, revealing how broader societal and familial values shaped their perceptions of their first-generation identity. Next, we reported how various forms of engagement and interactions with institutional agents impacted their perceptions of support at the institutional level. We then documented behavioral patterns within STEM departments that culminated to reveal how first-generation college students’ sense of belonging was impacted by perceived departmental culture. Last, we revealed interactions within STEM classrooms that signaled inclusivity through humanizing and intentional pedagogical practices. Infused throughout all findings are instances where student experiences were mediated through their multiple identities and were shaped by dual global pandemics of 2020, that being COVID-19 and the racial unrest resurfaced by the murder of George Floyd. Implications for this work have the potential to restructure how institutions provide support for first-generation college students given the salience of their intersecting stigmatized identities in shaping their institutional, disciplinary, and classroom belonging. 

Understanding the relationship between science and society is included as a core competency for biology students in the United States. However, traditional undergraduate biology instruction emphasizes scientific practice and generally avoids potentially controversial issues at the intersection of science and society, such as representation in STEM, historical unethical research experiments, biology of sex and gender, and environmental justice. As calls grow to highlight this core competency, it is critical we investigate the impact of including these topics in undergraduate biology education. Here, we implemented a semester-long ideological awareness curriculum that emphasized biases, stereotypes, and assumptions that have shaped historical and contemporary science. We taught this curriculum to one section of a non-majors introductory biology course and compared the outcomes to a section of the same course taught using traditional biology content (hereafter the ‘traditional’ section) that did not emphasize societal topics. Both sections of students created concept maps for their final exam, which we coded for ‘society’ and ‘biology’ content. We then assessed (1) the amount of societal content included in the concept maps, and (2) which societal topics were mentioned in each section. We found that students in the ideologically aware section included more societal content in their concept maps than the students in the traditional section. Students exposed to the ideological awareness modules often mentioned the topics covered in those modules, whereas students in the traditional section most commonly mentioned faulty scientific information such as pseudoscience or non-credible research, which was emphasized in the first chapter of the required text-book for both sections. Our results show students who were not engaged in activities about ideological awareness in biology had fewer notions of how society impacts science at the end of the semester. These findings highlight the importance of intentionally teaching students the bidirectional impacts of science and society. 

Abstract Efforts to discourage academic misconduct in online learning environments frequently include the use of remote proctoring services. While these services are relatively commonplace in undergraduate science courses, there are open questions about students’ remote assessment environments and their concerns related to remote proctoring services. Using a survey distributed to 11 undergraduate science courses engaging in remote instruction at three American, public, research-focused institutions during the spring of 2021, we found that the majority of undergraduate students reported testing in suboptimal environments. Students’ concerns about remote proctoring services were closely tied to technological difficulties, fear of being wrongfully accused of cheating, and negative impacts on mental health. Our results suggest that remote proctoring services can create and perpetuate inequitable assessment environments for students, and additional research is required to understand the efficacy of their intended purpose to prevent cheating. We also advocate for continued conversations about the broader social and institutional conditions that can pressure students into cheating. While changes to academic culture are difficult, these conversations are necessary for higher education to remain relevant in an increasingly technological world.