Using critical race structuralism (CRS), a new contribution, as well as primary and secondary data, this article explores the role of science in teaching social justice issues in urban education. In the United States, a teaching workforce, which is predominately White, middle class, and female, intersects with an increasingly diverse student population, creating a need for culturally responsive teaching practices, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), and science, technology, engineering, arts, and math (STEAM) classes. An investigation of existing literature reveals the need for greater emphasis on environmental racism and social justice as they pertain to students living in low-income and urban communities. Our findings reveal that CRS can be utilized in a collective effort to transform teacher education programs and teacher pedagogy, to effectively address environmental racism and other social justice issues in urban schools and communities.

In order to be effective, e-learning environments should include a diverse range of pedagogical practices and should focus on active learning student-centered pedagogical. Therefore, it should not be the delivery medium, but rather the instructional methods that facilitate proper learning. Courses that incorporate effective instructional methods will support better learning than courses that do not use effective methods, regardless of the mode of delivery. We compared a traditionally taught face to face Conservation Biology course, Biol 4244/5244, for Biology majors to a fully online asynchronous e-learning course designed using essentially the same materials but varying course delivery. The Biol 4244/4244 course is designated by the University of North Carolina at Charlotte as a “writing-intensive course”, where communication is a significant part of the course learning experience. We found no significant differences in learning outcomes, regardless of the method of course delivery. Overall, we feel that this study indicates that online instruction in this type of course is a viable alternative to face-to-face instruction.

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