Incorporating Experiential Education into Entry-level College Biology Curriculum

Through a literature review and application from personal experiences, this paper acts as a best methods guide for incorporating experiential education in higher education biology/life sciences curricula. The advantages of experiential education are explored, as well as how to best employ them to maximize gains. As experiential education is on the decline, this paper outlines what may be lost from a student’s education experience. This paper explores in particular entry-level college biological/life sciences curricula, as well as the pedagogy of entry-level college students. Throughout the paper, I reflect on how I have applied these methods through field trips as part of the introductory biology course at the University of Washington, and explore how they have benefited or failed. Lesson plans for these field trips are provided in the appendix. By providing these lessons plans, I hope that other educators will find them useful in influencing the development of their own lesson plans, and help them integrate experiential education into their own lessons.