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…

We examined inquiry practices and types of knowledge presented along with paths of logical associations between inquiry questions as part of an open inquiry process. The study analysed high school biology students' scientific summaries of open inquiry processes. We found three paths of logical associations between inquiry questions -- preliminary…

While computational biology and bioinformatics became an inherent part of most life science degrees, it remains challenging to encourage students to employ these diverse skills in a practical research context. In this education paper, we present a method to enable students to acquire hands-on skills by the data-driven study of complex biomolecular…

This study was designed to exemplify how hands-on based teaching strategies enhanced students' knowledge and positive attitudes towards sharks. Hands-on activities for sharks' biological and morphological features were carried out. Eleven elementary school students from a remote area in Taiwan were recruited and assigned to the hands-on condition.…

One of the innovations in the Slovenian school system has been the introduction of elective subjects in the curricula of primary and secondary schools, thus there is a lack of teaching manuals for practical exercises and hands-on classroom experience. This situation is reflected in the Ethology classroom and for that purpose we prepared…

This study considers how students change their coherent conceptual understanding of natural selection through a hands-on simulation. The results show that most students change their understanding. In addition, some students also underwent a transformative experience and used their new knowledge in a leisure time activity. These transformative…

The observation of living animals in school laboratories provides authentic views of biological research. Various studies stress the importance of primary experiences in biology classes. However, educational films may serve as an alternative in some cases. The aim of this study was to investigate student motivation before and after treatments,…

The classroom-friendly ABO blood type kit was developed by combining advantages of modelling and a simulation laboratory to teach the topics of ABO blood types and blood transfusion. Teachers can easily simulate the agglutination reaction on a blood type testing plate in the classroom, and show the students how this reaction occurs by using the…

Concept mapping is discussed as a tool for the visualisation of knowledge structures that can be exploited within biological education. Application of this tool makes it possible to relate the structure of the curriculum to the structure of the discipline, in order to support the development of robust student knowledge structures in ways that…

Learning modern genetics is challenging and students have difficulty acquiring a coherent cognitive mental model of abstract concepts such as DNA, bacteria and enzymes. Here we investigated students' mental models of genetics through analysis and interpretation of the discourse that took place while high-school students practised hands-on…

Compares two different methods of educational instruction, both addressing the improvement of pupils in bird species identification skills. Uses hands-on and group-based learning styles with (stuffed) taxidermy specimens and teacher-based slide presentations. Reports an increase in knowledge with both instructional methods but different learning…

This study compares two methods of instruction in practical school biology. The content remains the same but two teaching methods are used, one based on workstations (Group 1) and the other a conventional approach (Group 2). The content was a regular 9th grade syllabus issue: visual perception. Method 1 included a phenomenological introduction,…

Species identification tasks are generally accepted as fundamental aspects of biodiversity education. Our educational training unit, therefore, focused on identification skills by introducing stuffed specimens in combination with identification books and preparation booklets. We limited the number of bird species to six. 492 secondary school…