There is a growing appetite for structured programmes that connect young people, authentic research and the citizenship agenda.
But what are authentic research experiences?
For any undergraduate contemplating a career in scientific research, participating in authentic research seems like a good opportunity.
But in this week's Science, five researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, reviewed the literature, asking some basic questions: "[W]hat are authentic research experiences?
However, in most cases, evolution simulations do not address the need for authentic research experiences in evolutionary biology in undergraduate laboratories.
At the end of each lesson the students were asked authentic research questions related to the topic of the experiment and sometimes asked to design a new experiment.
The isolation and genomic analysis of bacteriophages by freshman college students provides an example of an authentic research experience for novice scientists.
BIO2010 emphasized the importance of authentic research using modern methods.
(2005) considered open-ended experiments to constitute authentic research.
Two conceptions of authentic research in laboratory courses emerged.
Efforts to increase authentic research in laboratory courses need to recognize that definitions of authentic research are context dependent.
