Science Forward is the approved standard curriculum for Macaulay’s Seminar 3. You can read the official course description of Science Forward (and the rest of the MHC core seminars) here. Science Forward is an introductory course in scientific literacy and scientific inquiry, grounded in critical thinking and the skills and approaches that the sciences use to investigate the world.

A Science Forward seminar has the following four characteristics: 

1 – It is skills-focused. A Science Forward seminar is focused on the common skills that all scientists use to do science. We call these the Science Senses. There are three categories: Number Sense (including basic numeracy skills, making estimates, converting units, etc.), Data Sense (including how numbers are handled, making measurements, statistical analysis, data visualization, etc.), and Knowledge Sense (including the nature and practice of science, distinguishing science from non-science and pseudoscience, experimental design, etc.). The learning outcomes of the seminar are all tied to these Science Sense skills. See this 4 minute video explainer for more information.

2 – It is interdisciplinary. **Please note this carefully** This cannot be a course (introductory or otherwise) in any one scientific field. The same general theme can be explored in different areas, but there must be more than just one area of scientific inquiry included. This is not a physics class, a chemistry class, or a biology class (although it can include all of these areas and more). We want students to see and understand that these skills are common across both life and physical sciences, so both life and physical sciences are to be included in your syllabus. You can see an example by checking out the sample syllabi here on the OER. We understand that not everyone is comfortable with every topic featured in the sample syllabus and we want to make sure you have flexibility to make the course your own. You should feel free to swap out any of the fields of science that are in the sample syllabus, but your final syllabus must have both physical and life sciences included.  

3 – It is an active classroom. We created the Science Forward video series (details in the section below) so that students could engage with material outside of the classroom and be ready to practice the Science Sense skills during activities inside the classroom. Each video has some options for recommended readings to pair with it. Your class time should be devoted to having the students work (individually or in groups) on practicing the skills. We do not recommend lecturing for the full class time. Other activities/trips/field experiences are critical (including the BioBlitz and STEAM Festival). Even though we may be teaching in different modalities, keeping an active classroom is key and we will be discussing examples of different types of in-person and online activities you can do during one of our summer faculty meetings. 

4 – It is experiential. Here at Macaulay, our students learn by doing. We hold two required Common Events (the BioBlitz and STEAM Festival, details below) for our seminar 3 students, to help them learn how science works by actually being engaged in the process of science. As the instructor for this course, you should keep track of your own students’ participation in these events (having them write a reflection after the event is a good way to do this). It is up to you to determine appropriate make-up assignments should a student need to miss one of the events, but we are happy to discuss ideas for make-up assignment options with you. 

BioBlitz – The opening event for SF is a 24-hour species diversity survey, a BioBlitz, of a specific urban green space. This year’s location is still being worked out, but it will most likely happen on September 13-14. At the BioBlitz, students sign up on their own for three-hour shifts and are placed on teams lead by taxonomic experts to find as many species as they can in that particular taxonomic group. You are also invited to join any of our BioBlitz teams! You can see the student FAQ here. A Science Forward seminar will use the BioBlitz data or that experience in some way during their course. We recommend that faculty have students use all or part of the BioBlitz data set for their final poster projects. This route is the one we recommend most as it promotes student ownership of their projects and full engagement in the process of science from data collection through presentation of results. Other faculty may choose to have a discussion about the BioBlitz or have the students write a reflection about the BioBlitz and then use other data (preferably other student-collected data) for the poster project. For more suggestions on using the BioBlitz experience visit our BioBlitz tools page. We will be discussing the 2025 BioBlitz in one of our summer faculty meetings.

STEAM Festival – The closing event for the course is the STEAM Festival, part of which includes a scientific poster session where Science Forward students present their projects. The STEAM Festival is a joint meeting of all Seminar 1 (Arts in NYC) and Science Forward students, and we will hold sessions in-person at the Macaulay building on December 6-7 and 9. We will let you know the exact timing of the sessions on those days once they are set. The program will include project presentations and guided inquiry regarding the connections between arts and science. All Science Forward students (in small groups) are to present a scientific research poster at this event. This poster project brings together multiple learning outcomes, particularly those in the Data and Knowledge Sense categories, and should serve as a kind of capstone to your course. The student groups will prepare these posters to visually present their findings (especially their work with BioBlitz and other data) and communicate their results at the STEAM Festival. You can see some recommendations for scaffolding this project across the semester here. We will create a digital gallery for displaying projects as we have been doing since 2020. Posters will need to be uploaded to the online gallery by December 5, so please add that date to your syllabi. ALL students are required to participate, and faculty are welcome to join us for any or all sessions. Faculty should expect to use this experience in class in some way by having a follow up discussion or an assignment students can hand in to you. We will discuss examples and a rubric for assessment at one of our faculty meetings.

This OER has been custom built for Science Forward. The centerpiece of the OER is the Science Forward Video Series. There are 17 videos available:
• Animal Communication
• Artificial Intelligence 
• Astronomy 
• Climate Change 
• Cancer Biology
• Drug Development and Discovery 
• Energy
• Ethics and Science
• Evolution 
• Geology 
• Scientific Uncertainty 
• The Challenge of Food 
• The Science Senses 
• Tools of Seeing: Microscopes to Telescopes 
• Urban Ecology 
• Water 
• What is Science? 

Each video is on a page of the OER that lists the key Science Senses highlighted in the video and suggestions for connected activities. All videos have optional closed captioning, a pdf transcript, and a version with audio descriptions for the visually impaired. These videos are pitched to a broad audience, and you can customize your student experience by pairing them with appropriate readings (see recommendations below each video). The videos are designed to raise questions and promote discussion, rather than to comprehensively “cover” any topic.   

Macaulay’s Teaching and Learning Collaboratory is made of TLC fellows (“TLCs”), who are CUNY doctoral students with great pedagogical interests and experience, and three postdoctoral fellows that supervise the TLCs. The TLC is organized into teams that support specific campuses. Your TLC fellow will be reaching out to you soon, and you can direct all questions and support needs to them. You can also contact tlchelp@macaulay.cuny.edu to reach the TLC. Dr. Lisa Brundage supervises the TLC, and she has shared the following information: 

Here is what you can expect from the TLC:

• Help with in-class workshops projects and Common Event integration
• Consistent communication and responses to your requests
• Daily virtual office hours available you and your students
• Customized support for special projects
• A small team (one postdoc plus TLCs) who will support you

The TLCs can be powerful and effective partners in these classes. They can help you think through plans for your class that will hopefully help you feel supported and calm going into the fall. This might include adapting assignments for online classes, selecting the right platform for your course, building and maintaining a course website, figuring out the pros/cons and right mix of synchronous and asynchronous learning and more. They are provided not simply to help with technology (as their former title, “instructional technology fellow,” may mislead you to believe), but to provide overall links across campuses and sections to help you conceive of projects and tools that can be innovative and appropriate for your educational goals and to work with you and your students throughout the semester.

Send any and all questions to Dr. Kelly O’Donnell, Director of Science Forward. She is available by email (kelly.odonnell@mhc.cuny.edu), and happy to answer questions over the phone or to meet via Zoom. The listserv (seminar-3-2025@macaulay.cuny.edu) is also a way for you to reach all your Science Forward colleagues if you have important information to share. Reminder: make sure you can get emails from this listserv! Note: if you are not logged in to a Google account, you may not be able to click on the “View Group” button in the Welcome email you got from Google Groups, but you shouldn’t be missing any content, as posts to the group will go directly to your inbox.

The Macaulay Faculty website is a great resource for policy information and is where you can access forms to use your seminar budget. Due to the current budget climate, we are unsure as to what funds will be made available to support trips or equipment for class. We will keep you posted as we know more, and we hope to have an answer for you soon.

More information coming June 2025

Poster Project – required of all sections 

Options for the rest of your assessments: 

• Essay
• Video
• Blog Post
• Discussion Board
• Infographic
• Quiz
• Minute Paper
• Exam (not recommended)

Macaulay offers our seminars the ability to create course sites (and other websites based on course projects) in OpenLab. Faculty can feel free to use Brightspace as your LMS for Science Forward, but you will find more flexibility in OpenLab and the abilty to coordinate across sections/campuses, if you wish. The TLC can help you create an OpenLab site or you can use the template one we have set up for Science Forward. Check that out here: https://openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu/science-forward-course-site-template-associated-site/