In this study, we aimed to understand the state of school grounds across Britain and how they are being used to support biodiversity conservation and pupils' environmental education. We carried out an opt-in survey of schools across Britain, asking staff to report on habitats in their grounds and how they are used for learning. Our results showed…

With the onset of global change, forest species diversity has declined in recent decades as pristine habitat in biological hotspots rapidly diminishes. Many carbon mitigation efforts directed at decreasing emissions from forest degradation and destruction assume that faunal biodiversity will benefit from such efforts. Yet, conservation of faunal…

Teaching about biodiversity and its conservation could be an effective way to teach the importance of different species and human dependence on ecological support systems. This study compares the effectiveness of a digital and a paper-based dichotomous identification key for teaching pre-service teachers about plant species diversity. Twenty-four…

Background: Technologies may successfully be used to mediate, aid, and diversify learning, but several studies indicate that technologies cannot substitute outdoor learning and its experiential nature. To halt human-induced biodiversity loss, teachers should acquire a deep understanding of the principles of ecology, including the challenging…

"Citizen science" gives students a unique opportunity to engage with their own research, as well as data collected by other citizen scientists. Often, citizen science projects focus on students collecting and submitting data for scientists, which can sometimes limit opportunities to engage in the entire scientific process. This article…

Many evolutionary anthropologists view cooperation as core to the evolutionary success of our species. Concurrently, many sustainability scientists view cooperation as core to the future sustainable development of our species. When it comes to biology education, however, it is unclear how or if students are being engaged in these scientific…

This article examines the effect of different educational approaches to environmental education (EE) in the environmental attitudes of 507 preservice teachers. In one experimental group EE was addressed in a science subject and in other experimental group in a literature subject. The latter integrated content and competences in a transdisciplinary…

The definition of biodiversity stated by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 1992 was conceived as occurring on three different organizational levels: genetic, species, and ecosystems. However, current understanding of biodiversity includes other components, such as the number, abundance, composition, and spatial distribution of…

In teaching, students' representations could constitute an obstacle to the construction of scientific knowledge and are often considered stable cognitive structures whose organization is sought to be inferred through questionnaires and interviews. This study aims at identifying and analyzing high school students' representations related to the…

This study investigates early childhood (EC) student-teachers' species identification skills and their views on the importance of species knowledge. The study used a mixed methods approach, including a species identification test and a questionnaire, and involved 186 Norwegian EC student-teachers. Our results reveal that species knowledge of…

Plant identification is a skill that takes years to hone and develop, yet it is important in understanding diversity in biology while in school. This is highlighted when studying ecological succession in A-level biology where students are often unable to notice the different species, which leads to the production of poor-quality data, potentially…

How and why should intercultural education address anthropogenic climate change? The paper argues that anthropogenic climate change threatens "biocultural" diversity, leading to linguistic and species extinction and discusses the twofold preservation of cultural and biological diversity. The paper starts with a limited analysis of the…

Heatwaves, extinct species, and broadly polluted areas worldwide are apparent signs of the human-caused ecological crises. Scholars agree that a collective ecological change is needed to save the Earth. Thus, we must critically reflect how we, as dance educators, are dependent on how dance is defined, and how its educational aims and practices are…

The protection of earth's biodiversity requires a sophisticated understanding of how human activities can affect the relative abundances of species in natural ecological communities. Here, we report on an introductory biology laboratory activity in which students quantified biodiversity while investigating one of the most important controls on the…

Plant blindness has been widely examined in plant education research. However, practical attempts to counteract the common disregard of plants are rare, especially in standard school contexts. We developed and evaluated a teaching concept based upon an 'Educational Seed Mix' comprising eight annual species from six different plant families. With…