The goals of nonmajor science education are to improve scientific literacy and produce pro-science attitudes. Together, these goals are expected to improve an individual’s ability to make evidence-based decisions based on newer understandings of the natural world as well as developing technologies. In a post-COVID-19 world, public understanding of science was brought to the forefront for public health but were also challenged by a deluge of misinformation to obfuscate these goals. General education science courses represent the last formal experience for our populace. Following a learning-science-by-doing-science approach, this dissertation describes the development, implementation, and assessment of a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) for nonmajor science students. The first objective of this dissertation was to review the outcomes and design elements of published CUREs. Through a systematic review of Biology-based CURE literature, several content, skill, and affective-based outcomes are identified resulting from eight proposed design elements. The second objective was to outline and highlight the decision-making process when designing a CURE for nonmajors. Here, historical perspectives on course design, both general and science-specific, are described and applied along with findings from the first objective to design a CURE for nonmajor biology students. The third objective was to survey graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) that instructed this nonmajor CURE to identify GTA benefits and challenges. Findings indicate that GTAs found CUREs to be beneficial to their current and future works and strongly believed this type of approach to nonmajor education is preferable to expository lab design. The final objective was to assess student scientific literacy and science attitudes after engaging with a CURE. Based on two surveys using a pre/post design, there were no significant differences between different laboratory course designs for neither literacy nor attitudes and only found some support between the association of scientific literacy and science attitudes. This dissertation demonstrates the complexity of cradle-to-grave course design, the difficulty in measuring large constructs such as scientific literacy and science attitudes, and implications for future evidence-based course design.