This assignment was designed for students in the pathways introductory chemistry class and the first year seminar and aligns with the Inquiry and Problem Solving core competency. In this context, there is a focus on framing the issues (identifies and/or addresses questions and problems), evidence gathering (assembles, reviews and synthesizes evidence from several diverse sources), evidence (analyze the data to address the questions posed) and conclusions (critical thinking, reflect on the outcomes, draw conclusions and generate new knowledge). There is also a Global Learning component based on comparing data collected locally with corresponding data from other locations or countries. The assignment includes the written communication ability with a focus on "Content Development and Organization," as well as the clarity of the communication and its purpose. The overall aim of this assignment is to enhance students' conceptual learning and understanding of key issues related to society as well as their course. This assignment was developed as part of a LaGuardia Global Learning mini-grant and CUNY Experiential Learning and Research in the Classroom mini-grants.
The assignment will be scaffolded over about 3 weeks and is worth about 10% of the final grade.
To further increase the success of this assignment, instructors might want to consider the following: Use class discussions to focus on the relevance and importance of conceptual learning. In order to improve the data analysis aspect, incorporating class demonstrations of how to conduct the analysis and guide discussions about what the data means. Giving students more detailed rubrics with formal expectations of the requirements of the assignments, particularly in the written format Find ways to increase student participation in class discussions.
When this assignment has been utilized in previous semesters, students clearly displayed the capability to relate the co-curricular experiences in the data collection and its analysis to concepts and ideas covered during class. Evidence for this came from very dynamic and interactive class discussions based on air pollution as well as from the output of the written assignment, in which students were able to relate the nature, sources and chemical properties of the pollutants to their impact on the environment, health and society in general.
LaGuardia's Core Competencies and Communication Abilities
List the Program Goal(s) that this assignment targets
Global Learning based on comparing pollutant levels around the LaGuardia campus with those in other locations or countries. It is also an IPS assignment, incorporating scientific literacy and thinking, as students need to analyze the data, interpret it and reflect on the outcomes.
List the Student Learning Objective(s) that this assignment targets
Identify and apply fundamental chemical concepts and methods. Gather, analyze, and interpret data.
List the Course Objectives(s) that this assignment targets
Explore the complex connections between chemistry and society. Apply chemical principles to real world issues, including ethical aspects. Gather, analyze, and interpret data.
Write a short description of the pedagogy involved in executing this assignment
Students collect and analyze the data, interpret the results in terms of pollution levels, safety and ethics and compare with EPA standard levels and with levels in other countries.
Outside the classroom events will be organized for data collection. There will be class and group-based discussions focused on the data, its analysis and the connections to society.

This two week assignment asks students to interpret and analyze the 1974 Arecibo Message sent by Drake and Sagan. Week 1 introduces the concepts behind the construction of the message and engages with a critical analysis of the architecture and the contents of the message. Week 2 asks students to develop software in a Jupyter Notebook (available for free from the Anaconda Python Distribution) to interpret messages that were similar to those produced by Drake and Sagan.

Students perform a literature review on a biology topic, choose 2-3 papers published in scientific journals to discuss in their assignment, provide a final opinion on the topic, and some voluntarily present on their selected topic.

This assignment was inspired by a group discussion by faculty who teach the First Year Seminar in Business (BTF101) during the 2018-19 Rebooting the FYS Seminar. BTF101 is a two-credit course that meets for a total of 3 hours. We were tasked with ways to improve course assignments aimed at strengthening students‰Ûª Global Learning Competency and Digital Communication Ability. The topic of sweatshops abroad is a proven way to introduce a Global Learning assignment with a business related topic. In order to deepen the students‰Ûª learning on the subject, the assignment tasks students with taking on the role of a Corporate Responsibility Officer (CRO) for Nike. In choosing to put students in this role, they are required to think of multiple perspectives as required by the Global Learning rubric.
The assignment includes several phases and culminates in a student-made video. The first phase of the assignment has students explore sweatshops through video, class discussion and a short writing assignment. The research material provided is intentionally focused on Nike‰Ûªs sweatshops so that students can narrow their focus to a particular instance of sweatshop usage in order to more readily formulate a company-specific response in their roles as CRO for Nike. Once the research phase is complete, students are asked to make a video explaining the issue to Nike in the role of a CRO. The students have to think about Nike‰Ûªs role as a business, the ethical issues of sweatshops and the ways in which they can address the issues. Students work on the assignment during the last third of the semester, and the assignment takes approximately 2 or 3 class hours. To make it manageable, I created an ePortfolio assignment template since students are required to post part of it on ePortfolio. The assignment is used as a final in my classes and worth 20 % of the overall grade. I grade it according to the College‰Ûªs Competency rubric, which is discussed earlier in the semester to ensure that students are familiar with the rubric. Finally, there are a variety of ways to use the existing materials. While the assignment is meant to address the Global Learning Competency and Digital Communication Ability, it also offers opportunities to support the Oral and Written Communication Abilities.

Students use the O*Net and Occupational Outlook Handbook websites to research careers.
Supplemental handout: Definition of Business Trends

Two of the core competencies designated for The First Year Seminar Liberal Arts Math and Science (LMF 101) course are Integrative Learning and Global Learning along with oral communication. These abilities are exercised by students in the Career/Interview Presentation project. The main goal of the assignment is to promote student networking within the scientific community through interviews with an expert in the field. Also the FYS students will conduct background research about their career choices and use their findings to determine if they can be realized when interviewing a professional. The assignment is scaffolded whereby students will learn to use on-line resources to search for information about the profession and use on-line tools to material in preparation for the interview. Students will learn how to write professional emails, network and create PowerPoint slides. After the class presentation, students are asked to write a reflection in their ePortfolio on their career choice and interview experiences. The time dedicated for this project is on the order of weeks and counts for 20% (15% oral presentation and 5 % reflection) of the final grade.

One of the major components of the First Year Seminar in Natural Sciences (NSF101) is to introduce students to library research. The library orientation session exposes students to library resources such as books, videos, journals, databases. The "Choosing Your Career" assignment reinforces using the library by searching for information on a career, retrieving sources from select databases and evaluating the information found in a written reflection. Reflection questions are added to guide the student in their search and their approach to their career choice.
The goal is to integrate library literacy as part of their developing college learning skills. This assignment effectively introduces information literacy as the ability to find and use information and critically think about the information found when deciding on a career path.
This assignment consists of the following;
90-minute library orientation session (one lecture session)
followed up by library research (students' time)
initial draft (hard copy for instructor comments)
written revision (students' time)
a final written 1500-word research reflection. (deposited on student ePortfolio)
Objectives
1. Identify one science profession that interests you
2. Research the profession using library resources
3. Write a 1500-word reflection including the questions posed

Living in a big city like New York can be very challenging. City planning is an interdisciplinary enterprise where social scientists, humanists, psychologists, scientists, statisticians, citizens, politicians, etc. come together to offer solutions to improve quality of life in the city. To find such solutions, these people need clear and reliable (qualitative and quantitative) information about specific challenges that residents and visitors face For the variety of stakeholders in the city, many different things might be considered worthy of study, depending on their interests and needs regarding, e.g., employment, financial status, family size, healthcare, mobility, and education.
For example, do you know whether your neighborhood issufficiently protected from a fire? What about other neighborhoods in the city? To what extent does a CUNY degree help a person gain employment in the City? In which ways do race or gender or sexual preference play a role in how people experience city life? Can these be quantified in dollar terms? Once you have identified a problem, write an essay that describes a question
about city life that you believe is worthy of a statistical study.

This is an in class activity created for Organic Chemistry I at LaGuardia Community College.

During this lab, students determine the salinity of collected water samples. They also compare the effect of the solute concentration of their samples with that of solutions of known solute concentrations on plant cells.

A well-crafted and executed storytelling assignment can serve as an efficient and engaging learning activity which targets the three highest levels of Blooms‰Ûª taxonomy which are to Create, Evaluate and Analyze. This digital storytelling assignment is part of a signature assignment series (Stage 1) conducted in all courses of the First Year Seminar for Natural Sciences (NSF101). Students begin collecting pictures and videos for their assignment from the 3rd week of the semester on a flash drive. During the fourth week of the semester, the instructor first describes the storytelling process and stages. This is followed by learning around how storytelling can be used as a narrative, to foster inquiry learning, content-based information.
In studio hour, the First Year Seminar Student Success Mentors enable students to familiarize themselves with the digital tools necessary to create their digital stories such as iMovie, narrated PowerPoint, Prezi and Powtoon (to name a few). Next, students submit a draft of their scripts, which is edited by the professor, and then students submit their final digital story. The prompts for the script ask students to reflect on their journey thus far and project forward into their future career aspirations. It also asks them to connect their content learning between courses and co-curricular experiences. The prompts within the assignment directly articulate the Student Learning Objectives of the Biology and Environmental Science Program (please see Table 1) Students complete this assignment within ePortolio assignment templates. Link to the assignment template can be found here https://lagcc-cuny.digication.com/nsf101-digital-storytelling/home-1.
This assignment has been through multiple assignment development and revision charrettes as part of the Programmatic Integration Meeting in the Natural Sciences Department funded by the Learning Matters mini-grants from the Center for Teaching and Learning at LaGuardia Community College.
LaGuardia‰Ûªs Core Competencies and Communication Abilities

The goal of this initiative is to improve students' learning of the subject while developing their Inquiry and Problem-Solving competencies as well as their numeracy, written, digital and oral communication abilities. A flipped-class approach will be taken to present different topics ahead of the practical laboratory experiences. Topics will be presented with PowerPoints and/or videos posted on Blackboard. Students will be given a low stakes quiz at the beginning of each laboratory session to assess their knowledge and understanding of the posted material. A research project, introduced at the beginning of the semester, will be used as the backbone to integrate inquiry and problem-solving competencies to the laboratories. Each laboratory will explore a question/aspect outlined in the research project; students will be expected to work in pre-assigned groups and present individual written outputs, data, and analysis at the end of each laboratory session. Students will be expected to compile their results obtained during the semester, and make a digital/oral presentation at the end of the term. Students will collect background information and complete four written assignments; students will receive feedback on these assignments to allow for improvements and successful completion of the final presentations. Each individual student will also be required to write three laboratory reports. Collaborative work with group members will be essential for successful learning using an Inquiry and problem solving approach, although written reports will be marked individually, per the guidelines given in the assignments. The syllabus for the lecture component of these sections is identical to the syllabus of the standard versions of this course; the grading procedures for the laboratory component of the course are modified as described in the grading policy below.
LaGuardia's Core Competencies and Communication Abilities
Main Course Learning Objectives:
This course is an integrated two-semester laboratory-based sequence, stressing major concepts of biology designed to assist the student in relating these concepts to the environment. The scientific method of thinking and the experimental approach will be stressed. Among the topics studied are: SCB201 Cellular and molecular basis of life, heredity, and the evolution of life.

Students will learn and understand the importance of reflexes in human body, understand how the nerve impulse travels through the nerves and how to test a reflex.

Students will be able to understand and do the following: describe the mechanism by which osmosis and different types of diffusion occur and compare and contrast the effects of hypertonic, isotonic and hypotonic conditions on cells.

This assignment, aligned to LaGuardia Community College's Global Learning Core Competency and Digital Communication Ability, was designed for the laboratory part of Human Anatomy and Physiology I (SCB203) course. The assignment, "Human Diseases Related to Different Body Systems" aims to promote students learning and preparation towards their future major in STEM and in the Allied Health Programs. SCB203, taught by faculty in the Natural Sciences department, is a program-core course for Liberal Arts-Mathematics and Science majors and a key Pre-Clinical course (prerequisite) for future enrollment of students into several Allied Health majors such as Nursing, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, Radiologic Technology, Dietetics, Veterinary Technology, Therapeutic Recreation and EMT/Paramedic Program. It is crucial then that these programs goals and the Human Anatomy and Physiology courses (such as SCB203) align well with and promote the scale up of assignments in the curriculum. The dimensions of the Global Learning Core Competency and Digital Communication Ability rubrics reflected in Human Diseases and Healthcare also run across many courses in the Health Sciences programs; for instance, in the SCO101 course in the Occupational Therapy program and in HTR101 Therapeutic Recreation to help build student learning and professional identities. This assignment in SCB203 can offer the first experience to students to practice on these needed skills and will contribute to students future academic performance in the Health Sciences-related programs.
LaGuardia's Core Competencies and Communication Abilities The assignment was initially developed as part of the Provost Learning Space project on Evidence of Student learning in SCB203 in 2016-17 and has been implemented in all the SCB203 laboratory sections taught by Dr. Gupta since Spring 2017. It entails research by student groups on the etiology, symptoms, treatment/preventive options and global distribution of human diseases related to different body systems, as well as the socio-economic, environmental or genetic factors leading to such distributions. PowerPoint presentations in class (using different digital modalities such as text, images, tables, graphs, citations or hyperlinks), collaborative communication on each other's work via ePortfolio, and submission of simple concept sheets provide an opportunity for students to earn extra credit while revising major concepts pertinent to the final exam. This low-stakes exercise is worth 1% of the total course grade and students have 2 weeks to complete it.

General Chemistry is a two-semester course (General Chemistry I, SCC 201 and General Chemistry II, SCC 202) required for majors in Biology and Environmental Sciences.
This lab experiment, aligned to LaGuardia Community College‰Ûªs Inquiry and Problem Solving Core Competency and Written Communication Ability was designed for General Chemistry I (SCC 201 Honors) course. Honors courses in LaGuardia emphasize critical thinking, analytical writing, and introduce students to research. This lab experiment provides an opportunity for students to engage in hands-on laboratory work, to develop laboratory skills, and to conduct research in the classroom by using two water soluble porphyrins to detect transition metal ions in a solution and on a paper support. Overall, this experiment was designed to meet the demand for undergraduate research experiences and to engage all the students in addressing a research question or problem that is of interest to the scientific community.
In order to demonstrate their learning, students write a formal lab report which includes an understanding of experiment procedures (methods and techniques), safety hazards, instrumentation, understanding of concepts and theories gained by performing the experiment, collecting data through observation and/or experimentation, interpretation of the data (Ultraviolet-visible spectra), analysis of the data in tables and graphs, and drawing conclusions and perspective from the experiment. The knowledge students gain during this lab experiment will be useful to connect with future chemistry courses and can also be utilized to do research. The lab write-up is deposited for the assessment of the Written Communication Ability to which SCC 201 is aligned.
This experiment also raises awareness about a global concern. Students detect transition metal ions in aqueous solutions by use of porphyrins. Due to rapid growth in technology and industrialization, transition metals are used in large amounts in a variety of electronic products. The improper preservation of the industrial wastes leads to accumulation of these metals into water resources, which can create danger to human health and the environment. Therefore, there is a need to carefully monitor and frequently detect transition metal ions content in the environment.
This lab experiment was implemented in an Honors section of General Chemistry SCC 201 and was worth about 3.5% of the final grade. The students are likely to spend 3 hours completing the experiment in the lab and another 3-4 hours completing the lab write-up.
The Program Goals that this assignment targets:
1. To provide training to the students in various lab techniques and how to utilize these techniques to conduct research.
The Student Learning Objective (s) that this assignment targets:
1. Students will have an enhanced conceptual understanding of the theory to practice relationship and will achieve higher level reasoning skills.
2. Students will be able to develop their practical competence in laboratory work.
3. Students will be able to collect data through observation and/or experimentation, preparation of solutions of known concentration, characterize the compounds by UV-vis spectra, and draw conclusions and perspective of the experiment.
4. Communicate their results through the formal lab report format of: Introduction, Chemicals, Procedure, Data, Discussion and References.
LaGuardia‰Ûªs Core Competencies and Communication Abilities
The Course Objective (s) that this assignment targets:
1. Based on the principles of environmental chemistry, students will be able to detect the transition metal ions using a porphyrin as a sensor and explore the complex connections between chemistry and real world issues.
2. Observe, collect, analyze and interpret experimental data and graph the UV visible spectra using Microsoft Excel.

Objectives
Part 1: An Introduction to Data Analysis Using Excel To interpret, summarize and present numerical data using the digital tool Microsoft program Excel. To plot numerical data as a graph and determine an equation of a line. In addition, using the appropriate formatting functions to label your graph and creating a best fit line.
Part 2: Lab Report Writing Using LaGCC Institutional Data To communicate your interpretations of research data. This is done writing discussions and conclusions (using scientific language) and is often accompanied by data tables and graphs. To use your Microsoft Excel graphing skills to interpret, inquire and extrapolate meaning data to support your lab report conclusions To structure your written lab report in the format of: Abstract, Introduction, Material, Methods,Results, Discussion/Conclusion and References

Working with a partner from the class, students will choose a topic of interest relevant to the field of neuroscience, explore the relevant literature, write a 5-7 page paper on the topic, and present the results of their research to the class in the form of a 5-10 minute oral presentation.

This assignment was designed for students in the first year seminar and aligns with the Inquiry and Problem Solving core competency, with a focus on framing the issues (identifies and/or addresses questions problems and/or hypothesis informed by knowledge of context) and evidence gathering (assembles, reviews and synthesizes evidence from diverse sources of relevant knowledge). Both assignments rely on writing and one may include an oral component. In writing, the focus is on Content Development and Organization, as well as Control of Language, Syntax, and Mechanics. LaGuardia's Core Competencies and Communication Abilities
Main Course Learning Objectives: The LMF course for Liberal Arts Math and Science introduces students to the habits of mind of the major, and to relevant on-campus resources. Students are also supposed to plan their academic journey with faculty advisors. Read and contrast the historical perspectives vs the current perspectives about women in STEM. (Women in the early 20th century vs contemporary issues). Data: will be provided (from NSF and other government agencies) about women in STEM workforce and bachelor's and higher-level degree holders. Students must analyze and interpret (critical thinking). Generate appropriate questions. Reflection: be able to develop and defend arguments based on data and readings. Research Summary: Understand and evaluate factors that contributed to the success of Nobel Prize Winners in the early 20th century.

This assignment was developed for students in NSF 100 Natural Sciences who attend a 1-hour library session. This session is aligned with the Inquiry and Problem Solving and Integrative core competencies in terms of exposing students to "Searching as Strategic Exploration."Strategy and exploration are the keys to effective research. Students often mistake academic research as similar to Googling. This session will stress the importance of mastering the research process in an academic context. It will encourage students to become familiar with the diverse tools and resources provided by the library. This session will give students a quick outline of the research process. It will stress the importance of identifying information needs, resources and strategies. It will also provide tips and tools for managing the search process and results effectively. LaGuardia's Core Competencies and Communication Abilities Main Course Learning Objectives: Students will be introduced to the concept of library academic resources Students will learn the strengths and weaknesses of different forms of information