From Classroom to Community: Why Science Literacy Matters

0:00:01 – Announcer

You are listening to the National University Podcast.

0:00:09 – Kimberly King

Hello, I’m Kimberly King. Welcome to the National University Podcast, where we offer an holistic approach to student support, well-being and success: the Whole Human Education. We put passion into practice by offering accessible, achievable higher education to lifelong learners.

0:00:30 – Kimberly King

Today we are talking about scientific literacy and what that means, and, in a recent article from the Journal of Microbiology and Biology, education. Scientific literacy can be defined in multiple ways, from how an individual processes scientific facts and concepts and interprets scientific data, to how a community collectively interacts with scientific knowledge and processes. So it’s a very interesting conversation we have coming up on today’s show.

On today’s episode, we’re discussing literacy in science, and joining us is National University’s Dr. Ana Maria Barral. Dr. Barral is an educator and scientist dedicated to demystifying science for diverse audiences, particularly underserved communities.

With a PhD in medical cell biology from the University of Linköping, Sweden, and a BSC in biochemistry from the University of Havana, Cuba, her extensive academic journey has included laboratory research focused on cancer biology, both in academic and industry settings, and a pivot to science education, culminating in over a decade of service as a professor at National University. She is the program director of the Associate of Science in Human Biology and coordinator of the non-majors general biology and microbiology courses. Her current research interest focuses on science education research, particularly course-based undergraduate research experiences for which she received a National Science Foundation grant. In 2023, she received a National University Teaching Excellence Award. Congratulations, we welcome you to the podcast. Dr. Barral, how are you?

0:02:20 – Doctor Ana Maria Barral

Good. Thank you so much for having me. It’s such a pleasure to you know being able to talk about my passion, which is science education and science literacy.

0:02:30 – Kimberly King

Well, we really appreciate it. Why don’t you fill our audience in a little bit on your mission and your work before we get to today’s show topic?

0:02:48 – Doctor Ana Maria Barral

Sure, I would say that my mission is science education, and by this I mean both the education of science in respect to different disciplines- you know, when I’m teaching biology or microbiology, et cetera- but also the communication of science, you know, to make the process of science more accessible to as many people as possible.

For me, science literacy is critical. You know, that everybody should have this idea of how science works and being able to look for information and make important decisions. And I’ll just give you a very recent example. So I’m teaching a microbiology class and we are talking about what do you add, or what is added to drinking water to make it safe? And just the nerdy part, it’s either chloramine or chlorine and there are pros and cons to each. So I encourage students to find their water district’s websites and look up the yearly report, because they were having all these questions about what is being added to our drinking water, and it was just nice to see that they were interested because this was relevant for them. So I like to connect the science part with real life implication and providing this power to everybody, basically to make their informed decisions and look for information.

0:04:05 – Kimberly King

I’m going to have to talk to you after this podcast because we have a very relevant issue going on. I would love for you to take a look at the water that we have right in our city, in Coronado, and in the South Bay, with the Tijuana sewage coming in, and so they’re constantly- this is a very relevant topic for what you’re talking about and it’s good to know, as you said, what water we’re drinking. Interesting. So today we are talking about literacy in science, and I love this. So what has been going on since we last spoke?

0:04:35 – Doctor Ana Maria Barral

So I have been driving to our Los Angeles campus to teach a microbiology class and this is kind of a new campus in the sense that we had an LA campus, it closed during COVID, and then it was moved to this other new location. So this is exciting for me because this is the very first set of science classes of my program at this campus, and it’s just a nice new, brand-new thing. So we are opening boxes and everything is shiny.

The campus is very central. It’s located near kind of south of Los Angeles airport, so it’s very easily accessible through all kinds of freeways and street. And very nice for my students, which are mostly pre-nursing students, is that the nursing program simulation lab is like next door, so the students have this chance to glimpse what their future training will look like once they enter the program and, can you know, ask questions and just have this first-hand experience.

0:05:41 – Kimberly King

I love that I’ve been at that campus, and so it’s great to hear that it’s open once again. So what’s new and exciting with your program? I love that you’re talking about having that nursing program hands-on experience. Tell me a little bit.

0:06:10 – Doctor Ana Maria Barral

I’m very excited about this new course and I’m going to plug it here. So the course name is Bio 205A and the official name is Pre-Health Laboratory Skills, and the reason we developed this is because we want to help students who need the hands-on lab experience to apply to the nursing program but they cannot take our traditional on-site lab classes, which are, you know, the hands-on anatomy, physiology, microbiology classes. We offer them in San Diego and two campuses, in LA and in Fresno.

But you know, not all students live close to those campuses so they have complicated lives and work and family responsibilities so they just cannot do this for six months commuting to our campuses. And we particularly thought about our military students because to take those classes they have to be sure that they are going to be on shore for six months, and you know, sometimes they are deployed, active duty, etc.

So the solution for this is that the students take the online versions of these courses. So this is six months online which we can take and take from anywhere, and then they come to the nearest campus four times in one month. So it’s a one-month course. But not only that’s a one-month course, but we have scheduled it on Friday-Saturday, so they would start like Friday afternoon and then Saturday morning until like 2:45 PM.

So the idea is that even students who work full time, they will be able to come to the nearest campus for you know, four weekends basically, and that it will bridge that gap between the online classes and on-site classes and they can apply to the nursing program. So I will be teaching it for the first time in November in San Diego, and we are exploring like, where is next. And this is a class that is not difficult to schedule because it’s Friday-Saturday, so it doesn’t collide with other classes. So I’m really looking forward to it.

0:08:17 – Kimberly King

That’s exciting and congratulations. So that I think it’s unusual that you come up with the idea of Fridays and Saturdays, but again you’re talking about military really accommodating those that are already working and have unusual schedules. How did you come up with that idea?

0:08:32 – Doctor Ana Maria Barral

Well, I mean, president Milliron talks a lot about the ANDers, you know, or students who are working students and taking care of family, and in the military and volunteering, and they are studying. So we are always thinking how to serve them, how can we support them, how can we be flexible and innovative?

So that’s where the idea came from, like, okay, let’s think outside the box, how can we make this easier for students? And, honestly, we are always thinking about ideas. We have many ideas how to refresh our science classes to better fit the needs of students and society in general, and I’m just going to throw AI in. So right now, with AI, there is a lot of upheaval in higher education, and I think there is, you know, it’s jarring a little bit, but on the other hand, it’s also a opportunity for us educators to rethink approaches.

0:09:40 – Kimberly King

I was just going to ask you about AI. So what other, what issues have you found in student work that can be easily identified as AI generated?

0:09:49 – Doctor Ana Maria Barral

Well, something that actually is, so AI is sneaky in the sense that sometimes you get the sense that this sounds very polished, but it’s difficult to prove. However, there is one thing that is easy to detect is the presence of incorrect or outright false citations and links. And I have seen that. And you know, in science, when you write the report or a paper, you have to be accurate. You cannot just put in whatever references. So one major challenge is that AI can hallucinate, quote unquote, and this is an official word. It’s kind of funny. So AI hallucinate, they create links of citation that sound plausible but they don’t really exist.

And that’s one of my goals, as we, you know, basically accept AI in our processes and it can help a lot, but also, students have to be able to critically evaluate sources, verify citations manually and understand that AI is a tool, not an authority. There are some ideas that maybe there are some fact-checking, reference-checking tools that will be embedded into the actual AI, but I think until that happens, we just have to make our own little checking and be vigilant.

0:11:18 – Kimberly King

I think that’s a good call, being vigilant in that we are in sort of the wild wild west right now, as this is really broken onto the scene, so you talked about it being sneaky. So, regarding literacy and science, what is your advice to navigate the many changing recommendations and guidelines in the public health sphere?

0:11:38 – Doctor Ana Maria Barral

I think it’s really important for the public to understand how scientific research works and, to be honest, science people like myself need to do better in communicating this and that’s why I started saying that that was an important part of my mission. You know how to spread the science literacy and science process information.

So there is like a long way from whatever is discovered in laboratory condition on the petri dish, et cetera, to its actual implementation as a medication or a nutritional recommendation, et cetera. So it’s a long process and it takes a long time just to test and retest everything to be sure that it’s safe before sharing it via a publication. And you know scientists are really trained about double and triple checking everything and you know if there is an error it has to be amended, retracted, et cetera. So I’m not saying that established science is established forever. You know, that’s how science moves forward. There is an existing paradigm. It may be challenged with novel research, then a new paradigm emerges and discovery continues. It’s a never-ending process.

So there are all these contradictions between how science works, and then sometimes the whiplash of this is good, this is bad, you should eat this, you shouldn’t eat that, et cetera, and it can get very confusing for the public.

So I do believe and I see this as a positive about, you know, recent guidelines and reports in the public health sphere that I like this healthy nutrition is back into the spotlight, and one of them that I’m very happy about is that this focus on the risk of ultra processed foods. Like I have been there, you know eating my super-duper, whatever protein bars and then you look at the ingredients list I’m like, oh my God, it’s supposed to be healthy, but the amount of chemicals and refined things and whatever you are eating is not good for you. So I like that. And it’s also the concern about the widespread presence of pesticides and herbicides in our diets. So these are all well-documented concerns that often don’t get the attention they deserve in the mainstream health conversation. So I’m glad about that.

0:14:19 – Kimberly King

It is so interesting to see how, in the mainstream media, when things really rev up and all of a sudden, that’s all they’re talking about. And one thing that we’re hearing about right now are those seed oils being unhealthy. What is that, and where are we with that?

0:14:35 – Doctor Ana Maria Barral

I have to share a true story that happened to me many years back, so that was when coconut oil was the rage. You know, it’s supposed to be very healthy because it contains something called MCTs, which means medium chain triglycerides. You know, miracle food- best for everything- added to everything. So you know, scientists, I’m skeptical of those things. I searched the literature and found an article, a scientific article, where they found that giving this coconut oil to rats was healthy and looked legit and well-designed. And I said, okay, I’m on board, started adding coconut oil to my diet, fast forward six months. My bad cholesterol is up, my good cholesterol was down. I’m scratching my head. What did I get wrong?

So I went back to the literature, and I realized I hadn’t read in detail a section in all scientific articles called review of methods. What did you use for your study? Well, they were using some super purified coconut oil, which is very high content of these MCTs. But when you look at the coconut oil in the store, the content was much lower. So you couldn’t really compare whatever they were using in the study to whatever we were buying in the store.

So the devil is in the details, and that’s part of what I was saying before, that scientific progress is slow and there are so many nuances and details and regarding seed oils, it may be something like that. So some people say, well, it’s not like the oils are bad, it’s how we use the oils. Like if you take a seed oil and you fry it and fry it and heat it up for a long, long time, that may cause chemical changes to the seed oil. So I’m fine with studying this more in depth, but in the meantime let’s keep public health messaging you know, calm and they, you know, in a way, that this reflects that complexity, so people can make informed choices, not like okay, I’m not eating seed oils anymore. So that’s my take on it.

0:17:04 – Kimberly King

It’s called the sensationalization of journalism, right? Whatever they can do to get that headline, no matter what it’s about. So it is good to do your own research, and we appreciate that. Are you concerned about outbreaks such as the bird flu or the current measles?

0:17:21 – Doctor Ana Maria Barral

Yeah, I’m concerned about whatever the next outbreak can be, especially if it’s airborne. You know airborne infections can spread very, very fast and I do hope that funding will be reinstated for work on new vaccines against the bird flu, which is still around. And the issue with viruses is that they change, they mutate. We see this in everything – you know flu virus, covid, et cetera. So it’s good to be prepared and have tools. You know, people can make their choices. What they want to do with those tools, that’s their personal decision.

But I do believe that science should keep increasing. You know, the arsenal that we have in medicine and particularly with public health emergencies. And I’m really saddened by the measles outbreak. You know it was – measles was virtually eradicated through vaccination and now is back.

So people forget how dangerous a measles infection can be for kids and I, you know, I would encourage those who are concerned about measles vaccine – they think about also, okay, what are the consequences of a measles infection for kids? And then they decide, you know, what is worse.

0:18:45 – Kimberly King

Is there anything that you’ve learned recently in the field of biology and medicine? That’s kind of a silly question, I think, because I feel like you, especially, are always learning.

0:18:55 – Doctor Ana Maria Barral

Well, I learned a new word. It’s called inflammaging, like inflammation and aging together, and it seems like this is a new thing or a more recent fascinating area. So it’s the idea that as we grow older, our immune systems stays in this state of chronic, low-level inflammation, even without an infection. We just have this little quiet, latent, silent inflammation going on, and this persistent inflammation has been linked to several age-related diseases, including cancer.

And there was a recent article in Nature magazine, which is a very respected scientific magazine, showing like if and this was not done in humans, okay, this was an animal experiment, but they targeted inflammatory pathways and they saw that aging – so not only aging was delayed, but also treatment outcomes for certain conditions was improved. So I like this idea that it’s prevention and prevention of diseases, but also prevention of unhealthy aging. So, how you know we age, we all grow old, but how can we, how can the aging be healthier? So you know, there are so many chronic conditions that are associated to aging, so it looks very promising.

0:20:30 – Kimberly King

You just dropped a headline now that we’re going to be seeing for the rest of the next few years inflammaging, right? Is that what it is? Inflammaging, yeah, inflammaging. So you mentioned earlier fad diets and now inflammation, which, again, that is definitely things that we’re talking about, but I know people who swear by the anti-inflammatory diet. What is your take on that?

0:20:53 – Doctor Ana Maria Barral

So inflammation is really fascinating. You know one can see it as a two-edged sword. You know it’s a beneficial response when your body is fighting microbes. You know, you get the wound, you get red and swollen and hurt, but this is actually your body kind of cornering the microbes into that space and then it’s localized and then it goes away. Your wound is nice and clean, and it goes away. That’s how it’s supposed to work.

But there’s long lasting chronic inflammation, as I was saying. You know, it has been associated to clinical conditions, and one of the people I get my science or health information from his name is Eric Topol, t-o-p-o-l, and he’s the director of Scripps Research Translational Institute in San Diego, and it has this very interesting Substack. So he published a book called Super Agers. So again, kind of this idea of how can we age healthy. But yeah, chronic inflammation, you know it’s associated to cancer, to even heart disease et cetera. So I would say that anti-inflammatory diet could be considered a fad diet but it does have a basis in current research, and you know, it can be beneficial. Whole foods, fiber, antioxidants, all those sound really good for me.

0:22:37 – Kimberly King

This may be off the topic here, just throwing it out here. What can you say anything about insulin resistance and those kind of diets? Do you have anything?

0:22:51 – Doctor Ana Maria Barral

Well, we know that diabetes, the type 2 diabetes that most people are familiar with, the one that is associated to metabolic disease, as it’s called – so one part of it is that the patients are producing less insulin, but the other is that the cells of the body are less responsive to insulin. So you have this kind of breakdown in communication between the hormone and the cells. So I would say again fad diet or not fad diet, I think, just healthier nutrition and kind of going back. So move away from multiprocessed foods, eat more whole foods, fruits, vegetables, et cetera, et cetera, and just kind of return to a more traditional meal. So instead of okay, I’m going to have this super-duper, whatever supplement instead of just eating a meal can help to, you know, just dealing with insulin resistance. Now, there is a lot of research in the field, so don’t take my word for authority.

0:24:06 – Kimberly King

So we have touched on a number of topics, from AI to seed oils and inflammation. Do you have any other concluding thoughts or your advice for colleagues and students?

0:24:17 – Doctor Ana Maria Barral

You know, I was at National University commencement last month and it was such a beautiful and heartwarming experience. You know it was an opportunity to meet our colleagues, discuss our vision, exchange ideas, but of course it was so uplifting just to see the graduates walk to the stage and it was very nice. It was a wonderful experience.

So for me it was a reminder of the importance and positive impact of interacting with real people versus reading online feeds and, you know, doom scrolling your social media. So finding and building community, embracing goals to make things better, supporting each other, our human behaviors that help us even the most challenging times.

So let’s just interact and help and support each other. Build community. You know this can be done in person or online. There are so many tools that can help us bring us together. So, as Navi says, “Wings up!”

0:25:25 – Kimberly King

Wow, I love it and it is. It was, and congratulations to all those that just graduated and good luck in the careers, the chosen careers. This was very interesting, doctor, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and if you want more information, you can visit National University’s website, nu.edu. And again, thank you so much for your time.

0:25:47 – Doctor Ana Maria Barral

You’re welcome and again, very nice to be here. Thanks to you.

0:25:54 – Kimberly King

Thank you.

You’ve been listening to the National University Podcast. For updates on future or past guests, visit us at nu.edu. You can also follow us on social media. Thanks for listening.