Low exposure to research, often due to the financial constraints of college laboratories, and extensive curriculum can make studying biology unexciting for students. This short article on ​‘frugal science’ describes how paper, a cheap and familiar material, has been developed into instruments to study nature and stimulate creativity and curiosity in students.

The National Education Policy 2020 emphasises the need for a multidisciplinary approach in higher education to enable holistic learning. In this article, Tamralipta Patra and Tara Kiran Kurre, faculties of Teacher Education in the School of Arts and Sciences, Azim Premji University write about a course in which undergraduate students explore the topics of biodiversity and human-nature conflicts in India through the folk art forms of the country and other creative works.

In December 2021, Azim Premji University inaugurated a free online textbook, called iThink Biology. In this article, a faculty at the University and an author of the textbook shares the thoughts that went behind its creation and why it is a unique educational resource for Indian undergraduate students and educators of biology.

In education, research and innovation, we often hear the terms “interdisciplinary” and “multidisciplinary”. Many of us may use these terms without understanding what exactly they mean. In this article Madhumita Krishnan, a consultant Ayurveda paediatrician at The University of Trans-Disciplinary Health Sciences and Technology (TDU), Bengaluru unravels the meaning of these terms and explores the significance and need for a newer term called “trans-disciplinary”.

Is the style of writing related to the stream of science? Is the same scientific concept dealt differently in chemistry and biology textbooks? A recent study analyses language demography - the pattern of key word usage for explaining protein synthesis. The study suggests that students gain a holistic view of the concept by reading both the biology and the chemistry texts of protein synthesis.