Sustaining a broad diversity of plants is key for a sustainable future. For instance, providing a variety of flowering plants in urban and agricultural landscapes mitigates the current decline of pollinators and biodiversity in general. Therefore, educating about the diversity of flowering plants has high current relevance for biology and…

There have been many attempts to address the deficits in traditional teaching methods for decades Multiple studies have been done on the Common Knowledge Construction Model (CKCM) and the results of each study has shown an improvement. The addition of relational conceptual change has added much needed improvement in teaching science. This study,…

This paper attempts to answer this question: what should ecoliteracy mean in a biocapitalist society? The author situates his analysis of this question within the general context of the neoliberal reconstruction of education in the US. Specifically, focus is given to the shared model of governmentality GE food industries and education policies…

Understanding complex systems such as ecosystems is difficult for young K-12 students, and students' representations of ecosystems are often limited to nebulously defined relationships between macro-level structural components inherent to the ecosystem in focus (rainforest, desert, pond, etc.) instead of generalizing processes across ecosystems…

Teaching plant growth to seventh-grade life science students has been interesting for the author because she grew up in a rural area and always had to help in the garden. She made many assumptions about what her rural and suburban students knew. One year she decided to have them grow plants to observe the roots, stems, leaves, flowers, and fruit…