Print PageBiodiversity is a resource that once destroyed cannot be fully restored. Thus, reductions in biodiversity significantly reduce our capacity to respond to environmental changes. Yet, humans are responsible for loss of genetic, species and functional diversity across ecosystems. For these reasons, understanding biodiversity principles is critical for the environmentally literate citizen, and yet these topics are often left to the end of school textbooks, if covered at all. In this research we ask, (1) what is the state of student understanding of biodiversity principles (2) what pathways do students take in achieving this understanding? We are constructing a learning progression for biodiversity using a variety of approaches including written assessments, interviews, interventions and professional development for teachers. We identified key principles and progress variables (e.g. understanding interactions between organisms and recognition of biodiversity). In 2010 & 2011, we administered assessments to 1300+ middle (MS) and high school (HS) students in five states and interviewed a subset. Our schools were diverse, ranging from rural to urban, low-performing to high-performing, and low to high socio-economic status.
Results/Conclusions
Upper level students integrated multiple principles that govern the presence of biodiversity and change in diversity over time. However, a number of problematic patterns may underlie lower level thinking, leading to accounts and explanations that fail to (1) recognize diversity at multiple levels, (2) consider appropriate time scales, and (3) account for indirect interactions between organisms of the same and different species and their environment. Most students failed to achieve the integrated thinking necessary to examine complex biodiversity-related problems. For all items, over 50% of students scored Level 1 & 2, with less than 10% achieving Level 4 (the highest level); HS students performed marginally better than MS students. This finding is disturbing, as HS graduates have the power to influence public policy on the environment, but perhaps without adequate tools to make evidence-based decisions.
Patterns in student reasoning extended across assessment items and progress variables. Specifically, L1 answers are characterized by narratives with animals as characters that cooperate and compete in human ways, with plants as scenery or food for animals. In contrast, L4 answers are characterized by explanations that integrate multiple principles, recognize population change as occurring over multiple generations, and include abiotic & dispersal constraints and biotic interactions. Importantly, students recognize that an organism’s traits influence its ability to survive in an environment AND that organisms can modify their environment.
