Frontiers of Science Online is a site for college science teachers to access exemplary instructional materials, share teaching approaches and materials, and consult with their colleagues about educational issues. Read on to learn about the features of the site.

Teaching Resources

The teaching materials available on FoSO are adapted from Columbia University's undergraduate core course Frontiers of Science. These materials are available for free and you do not have to be a registered member of FoSO to view them (though additional tools are available to registered users, and registration is free). The FoSO materials include lecture videos; visual media including images, graphs, and animations; readings from the scientific and popular media; problem sets, activities, and seminar guides; examinations; guides to teaching and leading discussions in science classes; and Columbia's original online textbook, Scientific Habits of Mind, described below.

These materials are intended to be models in the broadest sense. They can be incorporated into existing courses at your institution; they can be adapted to suit the needs of your classroom or to reflect your particular area of expertise; or they can serve as a source of inspiration for your own innovations. (For more on using FoSO materials, see Copyright and Terms of Use.)

How to find and view teaching resources

Materials on FoSO are fully searchable and organized in multiple ways so that instructors can find resources by keyword or discipline, by resource type (such as Activities), or as a complete set of materials on a single topic. Use the "Teaching Resources" tab at the top of each page to find materials of interest to you. You can use the drop-down menus to find materials by discipline and/or resource type. Alternatively, you can enter text in the search box to search for resources by keyword.

Each resource is described in an abstract and the full resource is downloadable for your use. When viewing a resource, you may read comments from other FoSO users about the resource, and you can write your own comments by clicking the "Submit a comment" link. This is a way to share with colleagues your ideas about, and experiences with, using or adapting a particular resource.

You will also see, in the description for a given resource, an indication of how many FoSO users have added that resource to their FoSO library. Clicking on the number of users who have added a resource to their library will allow you to view a list of those users and see what other resources they have stored in their libraries. This is a way of exploring the FoSO resources through the lens of other users with similar interests. My Library is a free tool available to registered users, and is described below.

E-textbook: Scientific Habits of Mind

To better prepare undergraduates to succeed in a scientifically and technologically advancing world, the instructors in Columbia‘s Frontiers of Science course seek to teach students how to think like scientists—to employ their analytic skills when confronted with a challenge, and to engage with the cutting-edge research topics of the day. To this end, instructor and professor of astronomy David Helfand created Scientific Habits of Mind, an interactive textbook that provides concepts and examples of the abilities the course hopes to develop in students. FoSO users have access to the full interactive textbook; you may offer readings from Habits to your own students, or use the text as background reading and a source of ideas for teaching.

Teaching Guide

Excellent science instruction depends as much on course content as on the quality of teaching. Drawing on the expertise of Columbia’s distinguished and experienced science faculty, FoSO provides users with videos and print guides on the practice of undergraduate science instruction.

My Library

By registering for FoSO, you will be able to build your own permanent library of favorite resources from the site. In order to save a resource to your library, simply click the "Add to My Library" button from the search results page or from a resource detail page. When you are signed in to FoSO, you may go to My Library to view resources you've saved on previous visits. In your library page, you can browse for materials in your library by discipline or resource type using the links in the right-hand sidebar.

Community Directory

Registered FoSO users also have access to the shared knowledge and experiences of colleagues at other institutions. FoSO provides registered users with discussion forums, a My Library sharing option, and ways of finding colleagues who are seeking others with related interests. In this way, FoSO aims to build on the work at Columbia by becoming a home for the distributed expertise of science teachers around the world, and for supporting the collective enterprise of preparing students for the demands of a scientifically and technologically advancing world.

Any registered users who would like to connect with other science educators may elect to be part of the FoSO Community Directory. The Community Directory is searchable by discipline, institution, or keyword. Members of the Community Directory may opt to share My Library with other users and may elect to allow other users to contact them by e-mail. These e-mails are sent through the Community Directory. This means that the sender of the e-mail will reveal his or her e-mail address but the recipient's e-mail address will not be revealed to the sender unless he or she chooses to reply to the sender.

Discussion Forums

Registered FoSO users may access the shared expertise of college science teachers by joining any of the Discussion Forums on the site. Here, instructors can seek advice or information, contribute their own experiences and ideas, and meet other educators who are seeking to make science accessible and engaging to all students. Discussion Forums are organized by topic, and registered users may post to as many forums as they like. These discussions are asynchronous and take place on FoSO rather than over e-mail, so members of a forum will only see the FoSO username of any contributor, and will not have access to a contributor's e-mail address.

Discussion Forum topics are added regularly based on subjects of interest to users.