.Abstract
In this work, which is centred on diversity, we determine a series of key ideas about the concept. These will serve as reference points for the analysis of the significance and relevance given to biodiversity in various curriculums and school books. They will also serve as a reference in the design and evaluation of a proposed teaching plan for learning about diversity.
The key ideas are defined on three levels – diversity in population, in ecosystems and genetic/cultural diversity – and they are always linked to human societies. In addition to the definition, two sublevels of increasing complexity are used: description and explanation. For example, key idea three includes two parts: a) the description of a reality – that diversity increases over time – and b) the explanation that is given as an answer to the questions: What is the cause of this increase? How can we explain the occurrence of this increase in diversity?
The presence of diversity is analysed in three curriculums which have been in use in the last twenty-five years. The results show that its presence increases qualitatively and quantitatively over time in the analysed curriculums. The last of these (2007) is peppered with the term diversity, especially cultural diversity in the field of values of various materials. However, in the natural sciences, diversity is focused on natural diversity and it is associated above all to content about cells/molecules/evolution in biology-geology classes in the fourth year of secondary education (15-16 year olds).
With regard to text books, the analysis was of fourth year biology and geology texts from six publishers. A dossier was created for the analysis, using the aforementioned key ideas. The results show that the books addressed diversity by focussing on it in terms of population and genetics, while devoting less space to the diversity of ecosystems, and no space to cultural diversity. In matters of genetic diversity, the texts were balanced in their descriptive and explicative approaches but, in contrast, there was less balance in the information about the diversity of the populations in an ecosystem, with the descriptive side being more favoured. The texts barely touched on the socio-economic aspects or the influence of human societies on the three analysed levels of diversity.
The research-action perspective was used for the design and evaluation of the proposed teaching plan. Said proposal is composed of eleven activities which concern the study of the previously defined key ideas and one final activity, which is aimed at the application of the acquired knowledge. The latter is done at the end of the proposed plan, one year later.
The proposal was carried out with twenty-one students taking biology-geology classes in the fourth year of their secondary education. The gathering and analysis of the data is organised as follows:
– Analysis of the activities. The students’ productions are analysed, establishing categories based on their closeness to the key idea on which the activity was based.
– Analysis of the teacher’s intervention. The teacher’s interaction with the students was recorded during the activities. These recordings are transcribed, analysed and classified into technical interventions and theoretical input.
– The analysis of the evolution of the learning was carried out within the context of each activity and the results of each activity were compared to those of the final application activity. This analysis allowed the identification of the degree to which the established key ideas were acquired.
Based on the results obtained from the proposed plan, the following conclusions can be made:
- Students are capable of recognising relationships between populations in directed contexts, whereas they are less likely to use them to explain changes in the environment. Furthermore, they view biodiversity from a mercantile-anthropocentric and techno-scientific perspective.
- Students recognise that populations are adapted to the environment in a macroscopic manner. They are also able to visualise genetic diversity in the expressed characteristics which are advantageous for a population which is faced with a change in environment, but they have problems in conceptualising the above on a microscopic level. Students also have trouble in recognising that the low level of genetic diversity of our species does not explain the differences between human populations. On the other hand, they show a protectionist attitude with regard to the maintenance of biodiversity. The teacher/researcher and students show respective teaching and learning problems in matters of the socio-economic influence on the alteration of biodiversity. In general terms, the proposed teaching plan allows the expansion of the concept of diversity to more complex and abstract levels (ecosystems and genes) and, up to a point, the integration of the varying content (descriptive/explicative) in matters of diversity.
The overall analysis of the development of the proposal leads to a final reflection which encourages actions to improve the educational options made in this research.
Full reference of the thesis
Fuentes Silveira, M. J. (2015). La diversidad en el marco de la didáctica de las ciencias naturales: una experiencia en el aula de educación secundaria obligatoria (Doctoral Thesis). Universidade da Coruña, A Coruña. http://hdl.handle.net/2183/14786
Findings from the thesis are published
In Spanish
Fuentes Silveira, M. J. & García Barros, S. (2015). El estudio de la biodiversidad. Una propuesta de progresión para primaria y secundaria obligatoria. Alambique, 79, 25-34.
Dosil Mancilla, F. J. & Fuentes Silveira, M. J. (2014). Diversidad cultural, interculturalidad y educación indígena en México. Revista Internacional de Investigación e Innovación en Didáctica de las Humanidades y las Ciencia, 13-19.
Fuentes Silveira, M. J. & García Barros, S. (2009). La diversidad de especies en el medio. Una idea para considerar en la enseñanza. Aula de innovación educativa, 48-51.
Fuentes Silveira, M.J. & García Barros, S. (2009). El ser humano y la biodiversidad en el ecosistema: validación de una experiencia de aula. Enseñanza de las Ciencias, Nº Extra VIII Congreso Internacional sobre Investigación en la Didáctica de las Ciencias, 1496-1502.
In English
Fuentes Silveira, M.J., García Barros, S. & Martínez Losada, C. (2011). The various description of Biodiversity in compulsory education textbooks. Journal of Life Sciences, 5, 856-862.
Correspondence
Dra. María-Jesús Fuentes Silveira
Facultade de Ciencias da Educación.
Departamento de Pedagoxía e Didáctica. Universidade da Coruña.
Campus Elviña s/n. C.P: 15071
A Coruña, España.
E-mail: m.j.fuentes@udc.es
Telephone: 981167000 (4748)
