This article reports how Swedish teachers' aims and practices were modified by an ecosystem services development project that introduced insect hotels, bird boxes and planting to ten preschool yards. Teachers' understanding of ecosystem services, human--nature relationships and the impact of these on nature connectedness showed that their…

Despite the growing influence of the "material" turn within childhood studies and education, scholarship related to teaching and learning within the early childhood classroom remains a largely humanistic endeavour. By applying relational and multispecies onto-epistomologies to both children's classroom relations "and" our own…

The Draw-a-Scientist Test (DAST) has been extensively researched as a projective test used to assess individuals' perceptions of scientists. This study investigated student perceptions of entomologists and compared responses of students taught by a male instructor with responses of students who viewed video lectures recorded by the male instructor…

More-than-human refusal, as an expression of agency, plays an active role in constructing boundaries. In this article, I address what kind of environmental education is made possible by the productive constraints of respecting more-than-human boundaries and refusal. This is intertwined with how humans can practice being attentive to the…

The effect of repetitive training on learned behavior has been an important subject in neuroscience. In instrumental conditioning in mammals, learned action early in training is often goal-driven and controlled by outcome expectancy, but as training progresses, it becomes more habitual and insensitive to outcome devaluation. Similarly, we recently…

Insects form a highly diverse taxonomic group, which has fundamental ecological functions, but is currently in a process of mass extinction. Here, we present the first cycle of design, implementation, and assessment of a didactic sequence oriented towards improving pre-service teachers' knowledge and appreciation of insect diversity. A…

This dissertation consists of two distinct bodies of work. The first leverages a unique aspect of fire ant biology to investigate a potential role for a supergene in genetic assimilation. A supergene refers to a chromosome structural rearrangement, such as an inversion, that regulates the production of an alternative phenotype within a species. In…

The beekeeping sector is demanding, requires knowledge and updated information to be able to deal with the challenges related with climate change, food scarcity, stress, pollution, and other harmful effects from the surrounding environment. Hence, this work intended to make a characterization of the needs in professional training in the beekeeping…

The importance of honey bees to global agriculture is largely undisputed (Calderone, 2012; Southwick & Southwick, 1992). Simultaneously, commercial beekeeping operations face tremendous industry stressors that have led to increased management requirements and elevated colony losses in Florida and around the United States. in recent decades…

Citizen science is recognized as an important tool to engage the public in important scientific and environmental issues that impact them. Mosquito surveillance-based citizen science in college curricula have not received much attention even though its usage has the potential to actively engage students in inquiry and elevate student support for…

In diffraction experiments, natural gratings often create uncommon diffraction patterns compared with those resulting from manufactured gratings. This study analyzed a unique diffraction pattern obtained by a grating from a flying termite wing. A ring-like diffraction pattern was formed because of the grating morphology from a flying termite wing,…

Bees play a pivotal role in maintaining ecosystems and securing food for humankind. As such, it is crucial to shape a scientific understanding of bees for school students at a young age so as to value and protect the little creatures. This study is intended to identify teenage students' knowledge and understandings of bees in relation to…

One significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic for educators in forensic science was adapting what is traditionally a very applied field to a virtual learning environment. Because of this, science classes with a practical laboratory component had to implement significant adjustments to ensure that student learning objectives were still met,…

Recent research suggests that integrating model-based learning and socioscientific issue based instruction helps students construct meaningful learning in science classrooms. Thus, this paper presents a unit plan that integrates model-based learning and socioscientific issues. The focus of the unit is the white butterfly which is a local pest. A…

Despite being a fundamental concept in biology, evolution continues to be one of the most challenging topics to teach in science education. Ideas of evolution emphasising anatomical or behavioural features of individuals, as opposed to the interplay between genetics and the environment, are reinforced through language and culture, making them…