The percentage of children with certain allergic conditions has increased over previous decades. Seasonal allergies, which includes hay fever, allergic rhinitis, and allergic conjunctivitis, causes sneezing, cough, runny nose, and itchy eyes. Eczema, also known as atopic dermatitis, causes itchy, bumpy rashes and thickened skin that can appear…

Plant nutrition is a complex subject at any educational level therefore, identification of student's ideas regarding this scientific concept is important in order to define the best instructional learning method. In this study, we conduct a cross-age comparison of the conceptual understanding of compulsory students and prospective elementary…

Plant blindness, the inability of people to notice plants, is of current interest in the natural sciences community. It has been hypothesized that communities of varying cultures may have improved plant sight. Researchers used an online survey to assess citizens ability to identify plants. The survey also intended to address the concern of elders…

The increasing urbanization and alienation from nature reduce children's opportunities to interact with plants and challenge teachers to devise educational practices that contribute to learning botany. This study presents the results of activities developed in a Brazilian school through explorations, drawings, dried and pressed specimens, and…

This study examines the drawings that 178 young children carried out on two different occasions separated by a period of one year to explain their understanding of the plant world. The pictorial content of the drawings was analysed in accordance to the categories that previous research has proved to be useful when it comes to gaining an insight…

Human cognition is influenced by natural selection which results in better information retention related to survival and faster visual recognition of potential threat. Plants are excellent models for studying human preferences because of the long evolutionary connectedness of humans with plants as food sources, although research in this field is…

Plant lexicons in Sundanese proverbs have symbolized the ethnic group's identity since they have existed in the Sundanese natural environment, and represented Sundanese worldview. The objectives of the research were to discover the plant lexicons in Sundanese proverbs, their use, and their representation of human beings in the Sundanese ethnic…

Children's conceptions of plants as living things are thoroughly analysed during the last decades. Additionally, many researchers showed interest in 'Plant Blindness', the people's tendency to ignore plants and underestimate them comparing to animals. Aim of this research is to validate plant blindness' intensity among Greek primary school…

Varying from previous studies that are mostly focused on whether the use of worksheets is effective for environmental education, this study compared three family-oriented worksheets with different design characteristics to explore their effects based on family visitors' satisfaction. The results revealed that differences in children's ages…

Plant awareness disparity (PAD), formerly known as plant blindness, refers to the fact of overlooking or failing to perceive plants, perhaps due to poor 'species literacy'. Despite numerous efforts made by scientists and educators over the years, PAD is still present in students at all educational levels. An assessment was carried out on 259…

The objective of this study was to investigate whether the class scheduling of Nature and Biology classes in blocks results in better learning success for primary school students, and whether this depends on the average student success rate (i.e., student performance categories), age, or prior knowledge. For this study, we have assumed that block…

Limited awareness about nature and its species can have a negative influence on children's relationship to nature. Plant species recognition and outdoor education are perhaps the easiest way to approach nature relationships and increase knowledge. Unfortunately, it has been shown that people do not recognize plant species very well. This…

This research examined the ways in which children observe flowering plants, namely: which features they perceive as significant, whether the skill of observing flowering plants develops with age, and what is the difference between genders. The research involved 174 children: 89 children aged 5 and 85 children aged 10 who were given the task of…

Trees are important to the environment owing to their ecological services. However, many aspects of their form and function are poorly understood by the public. From their earliest years, children have an elementary knowledge about plants which they gain from their everyday observations, their parents and other people and from their kindergarten…

Problems associated with the environment loom large over the future well-being of young generations. A previous issue of PISA in Focus (PISA in Focus 87) shows that in 2015 many 15-year-old students believed that the future -- their future -- was going to be worse, environmentally, than the present. In particular, only a minority of students…