Field trips provide real-world learning opportunities in biology education as they promote knowledge about nature among other things. As biodiversity is declining knowledge of species is important for understanding and appreciating the natural world and its implications. Many field guides are digitally available, but differences from traditional…

This mixed-methods study explored changes in preservice teachers' (PSTs) understanding of the nature of science (NOS) and their values as global citizens after a place-based intervention augmented with role-play activities concerning climate change. The study further probed how these values manifested during role-play improvisations, where…

We explored the use of field trips for educational and teaching purposes by French kindergarten, primary-school teachers and natural science teachers in secondary schools. More specifically, we studied field trips in a "natural" environment by undertaking a French curriculum analysis and surveying teachers. We examined the responses of…

This study aims to examine the effect of the instructional plan which includes workshops pedagogically modelling the exhibitions at science centres for an effective field trip, on high school students' learning the concepts on 'Simple Machines: Pulley and Levers'. In this study, a semi-experimental design with the pre- and post-test control group…

This article examines an outdoor science activity based on Interdisciplinary Teaching and Learning of Science (ITLS) undertaken with a collaborative research methodology as a Research-Practice Partnership (RPP). The activity was implemented in a national reserve in Chile as part of continuing professional development and co-designed by in-service…

Citizens show misunderstandigs about groundwater that hinder making informed decisions about problems like the deterioration of aquifers. Science education should address this, including modelling practices about the aquifer model. Physical models (PM) have been extensively used in geology teaching, but students rarely construct, evaluate or…

The aim of this study was to analyse the effect of the visiting-scientist approach supported by conceptual change activities on high school students' images of scientists and perceptions of gender and risks that scientists take. Twenty-five students attending 10th grade in the 2017-2018 academic years participated in the study. A…

This qualitative, phenomenological study presents the experiences of high-school biology students (n = 233) in an outreach programme titled Students Meet Authentic Science. The core of the programme consists of students' visits to life-science university research laboratories (from here on referred to as labs). The programme was designed according…

Employability is a key issue for students and Higher Education Institutions and a key component of employability is possessing the skills a role requires. In the environmental sciences, fieldwork provides an opportunity for students to develop employability-enhancing technical and transferable skills. However, students can have difficulty…

This paper comprises a presentation of the findings of a case study that investigated how situational factors triggered 12th grade students' interest during a field trip to a zoo. The purpose was to identify sources of interest and to investigate the attributes that make them interesting. Students' interest was investigated by a descriptive…

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of mobile learning among young learners. Specifically, we investigated whether the use of mobile devices for data collection during field trips outside the classroom could enhance fourth graders' learning about the parts of the flower and their functions, flower pollinators and the process of…

In this study, we used the classification and regression trees (CART) method to draw relationships between student self-reported learning outcomes in 26 field trips to natural environments and various characteristics of the field trip that include variables associated with preparation and pedagogy. We wished to examine the extent to which the…

The development and application of a framework that captures main characteristics of learning in nature--the Field Trip in Natural Environments (FiNE) framework--is the main outcome of this study that followed up 22 daily field trips of 4-6th grade students to nature parks. The theoretical and practical framework, which was developed based on the…

It is widely held among biology teachers that fieldwork is valuable, but little is heard about students' perception of fieldwork or about the reasons for their liking or disliking fieldwork. This paper uses data from students to explore the hypotheses (1) that biology students with a positive perception of fieldwork have a less positive perception…

This study investigated whether listening to spontaneous conversations of elementary students and their teachers/chaperones, while they were visiting a zoo, affected preservice elementary teachers' conceptions about planning a field trip to the zoo. One hundred five preservice elementary teachers designed field trips prior to and after…