Picture This: Enhancing Biology Education through Artistic Expression

Abstract

In this perspective, we describe the Biology through Art project, an interdisciplinary approach to biology education that fosters creativity, engagement, and innovation through the inclusion of visual arts. Decades of research highlight the intrinsic connection between scientific practice and visual representation, underscoring drawing as a critical tool for hypothesis generation, experimental design, data visualization, and scientific communication. Yet, despite these demonstrated cognitive and academic benefits, art-based approaches remain underutilized in undergraduate biology, often due to student anxiety about drawing proficiency, instructor unfamiliarity with art pedagogy, time constraints, and challenges to scaling assignments to large classes. We discuss solutions to these barriers, and present recent examples of course assignments that enhance biology instruction through artistic expression. These assignments, developed for organismal and integrative biology courses by Biology through Art faculty, stimulate active learning, promote conceptual synthesis, and enhance scientific literacy. By presenting research-supported benefits, addressing barriers, offering adaptive curricular models, and highlighting collaborative strategies, we encourage biology educators to integrate art inclusion as a pathway to cultivate scientifically literate, creative, and engaged biology learners.