Meena Balgopal is a discipline-based educational researcher and an insect ecologist. Her training is diverse and spans agro-ecology, insect ecology, and science education. For the past 15 years she has been studying the role that instructional strategies have on learners’ environmental (and scientific) literacy. Her research interests center on “writing to learn,” group work, and place-based curricula. Her research is conducted in both formal (school and college science classrooms) and informal (citizen science, community gardens) settings.

Email: Meena.Balgopal@colostate.edu

Publications:

• Balgopal, M.M., Casper, A.M.A. , Wallace, A.M., Laybourn, P.J. & Brisch, E. (2018). Writing matters: Writing-to-learn activities increase undergraduate performance in cell biology. Bioscience (In press) DOI: 10.1093/biosci/biy042
• Harvey, J.A., van den Berg, D., Ellers, J., Kampen, R., Crowther, T., Roessingh, P., Verheggen, B., Nuijten, R.J.M., Post, E., Lewandowsky, S., Stirling, I., Balgopal, M.M., Amstrup, S.C., & Mann, M.E. (2018). Internet blogs, polar bears, and climate change denial by proxy. Bioscience, 68(4), 281-287.
• Casper, A.M.A.  & Balgopal, M.M. (2017). Conceptual change in natural resource management students’ ecological literacy. Environmental Education Research (In press) DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2017.1350830
• Balgopal, M.M., Casper, A.M.A. , Atadero, R.A. & Rambo-Hernandez, K.E. (2017). Responses to different types of inquiry prompts: College students’ discourse, performance, and perceptions of group work in an engineering class. International Journal of Science Education 39(12), 1625-1647.
• Rambo-Hernandez, K., Atadero, R., & Balgopal, M.M. (2017). The impact of project-based learning in engineering on achievement goal orientations and academic outcomes. Educational Psychology: An International Journal of Experimental Educational Psychology, 37(10), 1242-1258.
• Balgopal, M.M., Wallace, A.M., & Dahlberg, S. (2017). Writing from different cultural contexts: How college students frame an environmental SSI through written arguments. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 54(2), 195-218.
• McMeeking, L.B.S., Weinberg, A.E., Boyd, K.J., & Balgopal, M.M. (2016). Student perceptions of interest, learning and engagement from an informal traveling science museum, School Science & Mathematics, 116(5), 253-264.
• Jessup, J., Ode, P.J., & Balgopal, M.M. (2016). Competition for limiting resources: Quantitative reasoning in evolutionary ecology. The American Biology Teacher, 78(4), 300-309.
• Casper, A.M.A., Balgopal, M.M., Fernandez-Gimenez, M. (2016). Natural resource management students’ perceptions of conceptual change in a capstone course.Natural Science Education, 45, 1-10.
• Atadero, R., Rambo-Hernandez, K., & Balgopal, M.M. (2015). Assessing the impact of project-based learning in engineering statics on student outcomes using social cognitive career theory. Journal of Engineering Education, 104(1), 55-73.
• Balgopal, M.M., Klein, J.A., Morgan, J.A., Brown, C.S., Frasier, W.M., & Sample McMeeking, L.B. (2014). Linking biophysical, socio-economic, and political effects of climate change on agro-ecosystems. Journal of Geoscience Education, 62(3), 343-352.
• Balgopal, M.M. & Wallace, A.M. (2009). Dilemmas and decisions: The use of guided writing to increase ecological literacy of elementary education majors. Journal of Environmental Education, 40(3), 13-26.