Effective participatory science education in a diverse Latin American population

Abstract

Particular challenges exist for science education in the developing world, where limited resources require curricula designed to balance state-of-the-art knowledge with practical and political considerations in region-specific contexts. Project-based biology teaching is especially difficult to execute due to high infrastructural costs and limited teacher training. Here, we report the results of implementing short, challenging, and low-cost biology courses to high school and college students in Bolivia, designed and taught in collaboration between scientists from developed nations and local science instructors. We find our approach to be effective at transmitting advanced topics in disease modeling, microscopy, genome engineering, neuroscience, microbiology, and regenerative biology. We find that student learning through this approach was not significantly affected by their background, education level, socioeconomic status, or initial interest in the course. Moreover, participants reported a heightened interest in pursuing scientific careers after course completion. These results demonstrate efficacy of participatory learning in a developing nation, and suggest that similar techniques could drive scientific engagement in other developing economies.

Pseudoscience in the times of crisis: How and why chlorine dioxide consumption became popular in Latin America during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…The case of Bolivia is of particular interest, as it is the only country in which this compound was not only authorized by the PLA, but also massively produced by universities and distributed across the population (King, 2020;Trigo et al, 2020). Previous studies have shown that trust in alternative medicine is related to the lack of scientific literacy combined with misinformation (Ferreira et al, 2019;Lobera and Rogero-Garcia, 2020). Despite significant investments in education, Bolivia consistently ranks last in the region in science, technology and innovation production and its education system is heavily influenced by traditional and nonscientific curricula (Carosso et al, 2019;Ferreira et al, 2019).…”

“…Previous studies have shown that trust in alternative medicine is related to the lack of scientific literacy combined with misinformation (Ferreira et al, 2019;Lobera and Rogero-Garcia, 2020). Despite significant investments in education, Bolivia consistently ranks last in the region in science, technology and innovation production and its education system is heavily influenced by traditional and nonscientific curricula (Carosso et al, 2019;Ferreira et al, 2019). Combined with a clear political and communication agenda, this situation led to the extensive use of chlorine dioxide in the country (Trigo et al, 2020).…”

Pseudoscience in the Times of Crisis: How and Why Chlorine Dioxide Consumption Became Popular in Latin America During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…GI and GII are unrelated, as countries like the United States and China with a relatively unequal societies, rank high in GII, due to their strong science agencies and research facilities. Latin American countries, on the other hand, consistently rank among the worst performers in this index (Crespo and Crespo, 2016;Ferreira et al, 2019). Science literacy and education are anticorrelated to pseudoscientific beliefs in the population (Carosso et al, 2019).…”

“…Previously, the Global Innovation Index (GII) has been used to assess the degree of science literacy in a population (Filho and Heerdt, 2018;Ferreira et al, 2019). GI and GII are unrelated, as countries like the United States and China with a relatively unequal societies, rank high in GII, due to their strong science agencies and research facilities.…”

STEM Education and Outcomes in Vietnam: Views From the Social Gap and Gender Issues

“…Ideally, these latter would be seeking to boost their STEMrelated research so that they could match the senior academic landscape among developed countries with a prolonged and prosperous history of research and development (Kremer et al, 2013;Serpa et al, 2018;Eilks and Hofstein, 2014;Knamiller, 1984). One means to this end -and not exclusive to this end, either -would be to develop STEM education, which proved to be both useful and challenging (Ferreira et al, 2019). In fact, in a list of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the United Nations has highlighted the importance of high-quality education as foundational to sustainable development (United Nations).…”