TY - JOUR
T1 - Connecting ecology to daily life
T2 - how students and teachers relate food webs to the food they eat
AU - Wyner, Yael
AU - Blatt, Erica
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018, © 2018 Royal Society of Biology.
PY - 2019/3/15
Y1 - 2019/3/15
N2 - This study used sociocultural learning theory to better understand how middle and high school environmental science and biology students and pre- and in-service science teachers connect the daily life activity of eating to the food web model learned in school. We sought to understand how student and teacher perceptions of the environment and their experiences influenced their responses to interview questions regarding this topic. Findings, based on transcribed interviews with 54 study participants, indicate that three quarters of teachers and students were unable to connect the food they eat with ecosystem food webs. Even so, many respondents particularly those from elite public schools, did not demonstrate common food web misconceptions identified by other researchers, instead showing a sophisticated understanding of food web interactions. These findings indicate that even though participants were proficient in their school science understanding of food web interactions, they did not readily think about how their everyday out of school activities, like eating, relate to those interactions. This may be representative of a more general disconnect between formal ecology instruction and daily life activities. We provide several recommendations for how this disconnect can be remedied in our classrooms.
AB - This study used sociocultural learning theory to better understand how middle and high school environmental science and biology students and pre- and in-service science teachers connect the daily life activity of eating to the food web model learned in school. We sought to understand how student and teacher perceptions of the environment and their experiences influenced their responses to interview questions regarding this topic. Findings, based on transcribed interviews with 54 study participants, indicate that three quarters of teachers and students were unable to connect the food they eat with ecosystem food webs. Even so, many respondents particularly those from elite public schools, did not demonstrate common food web misconceptions identified by other researchers, instead showing a sophisticated understanding of food web interactions. These findings indicate that even though participants were proficient in their school science understanding of food web interactions, they did not readily think about how their everyday out of school activities, like eating, relate to those interactions. This may be representative of a more general disconnect between formal ecology instruction and daily life activities. We provide several recommendations for how this disconnect can be remedied in our classrooms.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85043485780&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1080/00219266.2018.1447005
DO - 10.1080/00219266.2018.1447005
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85043485780
SN - 0021-9266
VL - 53
SP - 128
EP - 149
JO - Journal of Biological Education
JF - Journal of Biological Education
IS - 2
ER -