This study describes student interest in the agricultural content pathways established by the National Council for Agricultural Education. Differences exist between male and female students concerning curriculum choices in agriculture, food, and natural resources. Male students were most interested in food products and processing systems, while…

Plant awareness disparity (PAD, formerly plant blindness) is the idea that students tend not to notice or appreciate the plants in their environment. This phenomenon often leads to naïve points of view, such as plants are not important or do not do anything for humans. There are four components of PAD: attitude (not liking plants), attention (not…

The goal of the research was to find out the effect of using living animal in teaching on remembering and understanding acquired knowledge in students with special educational needs (SEN). In our experiment, students with SEN (n=24) were compared with students without SEN (n=56). The design of the research was experimental. The research tool…

As the role of zoos shifts from entertainment to environmental stewardship, many facilities are embracing new methods of achieving their goals. Recent studies indicate that people who feel empathy toward animals are more likely to engage in conservation actions, leading some zoos, aquariums, and nature centers to incorporate empathy-building…

Recent conceptualizations of science literacy, a key aim of contemporary science education, suggest defining it as a function of actual uses of science in daily life. We characterize expressions of science literacy in online authentic public discourse, using content analysis of a year's worth of widely-read Israeli online news site coverage of…

Plant awareness disparity (PAD, formerly plant blindness) is the tendency not to notice plants in one's environment, which leads to the perspective that plants are unimportant. In this paper, we explore how plants and animals are represented in introductory biology textbooks to determine if these texts are contributing to PAD in undergraduate…

Animal experimentation is a controversial topic, especially among the general public and the scientific community. Thirty-eight undergraduate students attending the College of Veterinary Medicine--São Paulo State University in the municipality of Araçatuba, São Paulo, Brazil, were followed up between 2008 and 2011 and were asked to complete an…

Animals are important stimuli for humans, and for children in particular. In three experiments, we explored children's affinity for animals. In Experiment 1, 11- to 40-month-old children were presented with a free-play session in which they were encouraged to interact with several interesting toys and two live animals--a fish and a hamster.…

Students love learning about animals: how animals behave, what animals eat, why some animals are more dangerous than others are, and why animals look the way they do. In this 5E lesson, students investigate why some animals look the way they do--specifically, the advantages of camouflage and mimicry. What are an animal's advantages of being…

This case study is designed for use in graduate courses in student affairs and higher education administration. This case presents some of the challenges that higher education professionals face concerning policies and laws as they relate to student mental illness and emotional support animals. Requests for emotional support animals are becoming…

This study examined 3- to 7-year-old children's reliance on informant testimony to learn about a novel animal. Sixty participants were given positive or negative information about an Australian marsupial from an informant described as a maternal figure or a zookeeper. Children were asked which informant was correct and were invited to touch…

Children with autism spectrum disorder often have significant language delays. But do they learn language differently than neurotypical toddlers? We compared the lexical skills of 64 preverbal and minimally verbal children with autism spectrum disorder to 461 vocabulary-size-matched typically developing toddlers. We also examined social features…

In certain domains, people represent some of an individual's properties (e.g., a tiger's ferocity), but not others (e.g., a tiger's being in the zoo), as stemming from the assumed "essence" of the individual's category. How do children identify which properties of an individual are essentialized and which are not? Here, we examine…

Children's storybooks often contain fantasy elements, from dragons and wizards to anthropomorphic animals that wear clothes, talk, and behave like humans. These elements can impact children's learning from storybooks both positively and negatively, perhaps due in part to their ability to capture children's interest and attention. Prior research…

This study asked 241 primary children and their 13 teachers in the Canton of Berne, Switzerland, to identify 136 local plant and animal species, which were shown to them as pictures. Children's age, gender, and experiences with nature were recorded to test for associations with species knowledge. Teachers identified 52% of the plants and 61% of…