This conference proposes to take stock of the dramatic developments from the past two years to ask: Variants in Biology Education: What can we learn from pandemics?

Over the last two years, teaching and learning has grappled with the demands of change in response to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic within a highly politicized landscape for which science is on the defense and misinformation is rampant. Never before have so many questions arisen about the implications for mainstream organismal biology education, and never before has the speed and scale of innovation been put into practice. The “pandemic” symbolizes change, resistance, immunity, adaptation, and opportunity at so many different levels – literally, in our personal lives, in education, and in mass culture. It compels us to consider the workforce needs of the future where pandemics are now ubiquitous among all living organisms: people, plants, and animals (domestic and wild).