An international group of biology education researchers offer their views on areas of scholarship that might positively impact our understanding of teaching and learning in biology and potentially inform practices in biology and life science instruction. This article contains a series of essays on topics that include a framework for biology education research, considerations in the preparation of biology teachers, increasing accessibility to biology for all learners, the role and challenges of language in biology teaching, sociocultural issues in biology instruction, and assisting students in coping with scientific innovations. These contributions are framed by a discussion of the value of defining several potential “grand challenges” in biology education.

The nature of science (NOS) is an often neglected part of science teaching, yet it provides a vital background for students, detailing how science and scientists work and how scientific knowledge is created, validated, and influenced. Here, I review the concept of NOS and some of the challenges to its inclusion in science classes. In addition, I outline proposals, including those in the Next Generation Science Standards, for those aspects of NOS that should be featured in science classes. Finally, I discuss distinctions in NOS specific to the science of biology and conclude with some thoughts on how NOS can be incorporated into science instruction.

This article discusses a number of aspects of the nature of science that can be illustrated by considering the development of pangenesis, a principle proposed by Charles Darwin to describe the rules of inheritance, explain the source of new variation, and solve other natural history puzzles. Pangenesis – although false – can be used to illustrate important nature of science ideas such as the need for empirical evidence, the use of inductive reasoning, the creative component of science, the role of bias and subjectivity, social and personal influences on science, and the notion that scientific knowledge is tentative but durable, yet self correcting.

This article recounts the story of the development of pangenesis, a principle proposed by Charles Darwin to describe the rules of inheritance and the source of new variation, two concepts vital to his proposal of evolution by natural selection. Historical accounts such as this are infrequently included in texts and classroom discussions but can serve a number of useful proposes. Pangenesis was ultimately shown to be an inaccurate idea, and one of Darwin's few errors, but this account is an interesting case study to illustrate both how science itself works and a rare glimpse into Darwin's thinking and personality.