Science Forward
Science Forward is a new course centered around scientific thinking and skills building. For too long undergraduate science education has taken the form of sage-on-the-stage lectures and memorization of facts that are regurgitated and then forgotten. Little time is spent exploring what science is and what it means to be scientifically literate. Science Forward is an active classroom experience that focuses on the common ways that scientists think and work in the context of different fields of scientific inquiry. It was built by an interdisciplinary committee featuring both science and non-science faculty. Our main learning goal is to get students to hone their Science Sense, which is a set of skills that scientists and scientific thinkers possess that allow them to question and evaluate information that is presented as scientific. These skills include making order of magnitude estimates, interpreting graphs, analyzing data, making evidence based arguments, designing experiments, and many more. These are skills that are applicable not only to their future science coursework, but to other courses and their future careers. CUNY Advance has supported the creation of a Science Forward Video Series to accompany our course. Paired with readings from both peer-reviewed sources and the popular press, our videos stimulate students
