The feature describes two major efforts to integrate mathematics and biology. A call is made to biologists to consider the need to address biology undergraduate education changes and to use the resources described.
When we were first invited to write these columns, the editors felt it would be an interesting way to give the readers of CBE-Life Sciences Education an agency's-eye view of its concerns, workings, and accomplishments. This column is written with that charge in mind. It is intended to inform the community about our outreach efforts, some of the mechanisms used, and the effectiveness of these efforts. In 2007, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) launched an initiative called Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education (V&C), designed to enable the biology community to address the challenges of preparing undergraduates for 21st-century biology using 21st-century findings about effective teaching strategies. Over the next 2 yr, with support from the partners listed above, the community engaged in "conversations" among faculty, administrators, students, and professional societies through a series of workshops (
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.