Nonprofit University Receives National Science Foundation Grant to Improve ...

credit: B:CIVIC Official Website

"Many non-science majors may have anxiety about taking science courses, but students do so in order to complete their degree requirements.

The interdisciplinary approach to teaching science with the humanities might ease students' anxiety and offer a more inclusive education to students," says Veronica C.

Pastores, a biology professor at National University who's been awarded a $400,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to study the cognitive and academic benefits of art-enhanced instruction in biology.

Traditionally, the study of biology has relied on drawing, sketching, and diagramming to illustrate living organisms, design experiments, and visualize data, by way of field journals, for example.

"Traditionally, the study of biology has relied on drawing, sketching, and diagramming to illustrate living organisms, design experiments, and visualize data, by way of field journals, for example," Pastores says in a press release.

But the project's principal investigator, Michael Maxwell, has been integrating art into his biology classes for the past four years.

Now, nearly 1,100 students in 36 in-person upper-level course sections at National University and elsewhere will participate in drawing exercises intended to increase comprehension of science concepts and student engagement with the course.

They'll also receive in-person and online art lessons from art instructors

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