The scientific concept of biodiversity understanding by teenagers. a study case in France.

Background/Question/Methods

Biodiversity is a crucial stake and new environmental policy discourses are being developed that gradually replace the vernacular term of “Nature” by “Biodiversity”. Yet, what “Biodiversity” means to the general public is not clear. Are people really aware that the use of “Biodiversity” as a replacement for “Nature” also involves a shift in values and morals?

The growing influence of scientists, as experts for decision-making in environmental policy, is paradoxically accompanied by a progressive loss in the evolutionary facet of biodiversity. In France, this process is obvious in the political green party but also in the school curriculum. To describe how the transmission of the Biodiversity term takes place and transfers, we conducted an investigation on two classes of subjects: children and researchers.

We investigated how teenagers appreciate “biodiversity” by providing educational workshops on this concept. Our specific aims were to ask whether the young generation has heard of this term and how they perceive and understand it. The public target was composed of 13 to15 years-old students from high schools of the disadvantaged neighborhood of Saint Denis (Paris area). We focused on the scientific mediation, which was part of a larger Art-Science mediation project. We animated 2 or 3 workshops on the scientific concept of biodiversity in 4 different high schools.

We also conducted interviews of more than 30 researchers working on biodiversity. Our specific aims were to ask whether there is a common, consensual scientific definition, and to investigate how scientists appreciate the relative misunderstanding of the concept of biodiversity by the general public?

Results/Conclusions

In collaboration with an Art-Science association, we made a documentary on our investigations (some extracts will be presented). Video makers captured workshops with children and interviews with researchers specialized in Evolution, Ecology and Biodiversity philosophy. What we learned from this experiment was: first that teenagers knew the word Biodiversity (‘Biodiversité’ in French) but they technically could not define it and when they tried they mixed it with the organic label (‘Bio’ in French).  Moreover they never connected the notion with the term nature. Second, the biodiversity is definitely not clear in the scientific community.

To conclude we would like to open to Art-Science mediation that can be a really good approach for the general public and we will rapidly present some examples.