Race is a hot-button topic in American society, but one that needs to be addressed in the biological science curriculum. This paper examines how college students in a large introductory course came to understand race through the exploration of four key concepts about the nature of human biological and genetic variation. Using clicker data collected from four courses ( n = 296), change in starting and ending understanding of content was compared using paired t -tests and mean difference scores. Results indicate statistically significant improvement in student understanding of common fallacies of the “biological race concept” after a single exposure to content.

Race and racism are considered standard subject matter in introductory college courses in the social sciences, but remain relatively absent in biological science courses ( Donovan, 2015 ; Morning, 2011 ). Given a resurgence of biologically deterministic racial science (e.g., Risch et al., 2002 ; Shiao et al., 2012 ) and ongoing racial tensions in the United States, it is imperative that biology professors actively engage students in introductory and upper-level courses. This paper presents a tested approach used in an introductory natural science course (for undergraduate, non-science majors) at a mid-sized regional university. A biocultural focus is advocated for teaching about the fallacies (i.e., biological race concept) and realities of race (i.e., racism) (e.g., see Gravlee, 2009 ; Thompson, 2006 ). Further, an emphasis is placed on using a visual approach for relaying these complex and sensitive topics.