Ecological literacy: The use of guided writing activities in a college biology course

Background/Question/Methods Many science educators would agree that American students, in general, are not scientifically literate; however, we posit that students are not, in particular, ecologically literate. We define an ecologically literate person as one who can recognize the relevance and application of ecological concepts to understand human impacts on ecosystems. Students are more likely to resolve misconceptions when they feel motivated to examine their own ideas after finding that it has personal relevance. We tested a writing-to-learn model that explicitly draws on students' cognitive, affective, and behavioral reactions to readings on ecological phenomena. We hypothesized that guided writing activities using our CAB-WTL model would result in higher ecological literacy than without writing assignments. Non-majors in a college Biology class were asked to read articles about hypoxia and write three reflective essays in class. Each essay guided students to focus on their conceptual understanding, their emotional response, or their decisions about how to resolve any dilemmas they might have identified. Students were assessed prior to a 4-week unit on ecology, after 2 weeks of inquiry activities, and then after 2 weeks of guided writing activities. We separately scored the pre and post scores with a concurrence rate of 91%.

Results/Conclusions Sixty-four percent (14/22) of the students improved their ecological literacy score from the beginning to the end of the writing study. Students who improved the most did not necessarily demonstrate a complete understanding of hypoxia; however, they were the only ones who broadened their conceptual framework of ecology during writing activities, as demonstrated in their posttest scores. We conclude that ecological literacy is not a discrete state of mind but rather a continuum. Authentic learners who can recognize dilemmas and potential decisions (and ecological consequences) are on one end of this continuum. The goal of ecology instructors should be to encourage each student to move along this continuum towards ecological literacy. Our findings illustrate that guided writing activities have enabled 2/3 of the students in this study to do just that. We plan on continuing to test our CAB WTL model in various populations of college students, both non-major and biology students.