Redesign a biology introduction course to promote life consciousness

Abstract

To guide students to make reasonable decisions in the face of adversity and pressure, a new general course named ‘Introduction of Life Education’ was established. The course was organized based on the knowledge of biological science, with the integration of social scientific issues on life health, food safety, environmental protection and sustainable development. The course focuses as much on life philosophy and natural charm as on scientific facts and aims to promote students’ life consciousness on the basis of cultivating their critical thinking and integrative thinking abilities. In this study, subjective assessments such as classroom and official questionnaires and objective assessments such as pre-class and post class tests were used, and the role of the course in cultivating students’ life consciousness and thinking abilities was evaluated. It was found that students’ knowledge on life attributes and life characteristics significantly improved, and their critical thinking and integrative thinking abilities enhanced after the course. Students were interested in the social-biological integrated course, and had high levels of satisfaction with the course. The course is helpful in cultivating students to be scientifically literate citizens, and is worth popularizing in universities and colleges.

Keywords:

• Undergraduate general course
• life education
• biological knowledge
• life consciousness
• critical thinking
• integrative thinking

REVIEWING EDITOR:

• Stephen Darwin, Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Chile

SUBJECTS:

• Natural History - Evolution and General Biology
• Biology
• General Science
• Environment & Health
• Biodiversity & Conservation
• Higher Education
• Education - Social sciences

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the academic affairs office of Zhejiang University for supplying the questionnaire data.

Ethics statement

The study met the ethics/human subject requirements of Zhejiang University, China at the time the data were collected.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was partly funded by Department of Education, Zhejiang Province, China [grant number ZJU2022015].

Notes on contributors

Genfu Wu

Genfu Wu is an associate professor at College of Life Sciences, Zhejiang University, PR China. He is mainly engaged in teaching and research in biological fields, especially in Microbiology.

Kejie Wu

Kejie Wu was graduated from Education Department of Beijing Normal University, and now is a doctoral student in Fudan University, PR China. His research focuses on the education and examination system of modern China.