Evolution is the integrative framework of the life sciences. Even though the topic is often not formally introduced before high school, young children already have various ideas about evolutionary principles (variation, inheritance, and selection) and their underlying key concepts (e.g., differential fitness, reproduction, and speciation).…

Plant blindness has been widely examined in plant education research. However, practical attempts to counteract the common disregard of plants are rare, especially in standard school contexts. We developed and evaluated a teaching concept based upon an 'Educational Seed Mix' comprising eight annual species from six different plant families. With…

This article will discuss social, environmental, and ecological justice in education for sustainable development (ESD) and Education for Sustainable Development Goals (ESDG). The concept of sustainable development and, by extension, the ESD, places heavy emphasis on the economic and social aspects of sustainability. However, the ESD falls short of…

Young people continually lose contact to their natural surroundings and agriculture. As school is one of young people's main source of knowledge it should bring students and nature back together, by using agricultural examples. This research examines German students' and adults' knowledge on plant biological basics and viticulture choosing…

This study investigates how well prepared student teachers are to implement species identification in school. Data were collected with the help of a questionnaire and a PowerPoint presentation in which local plant and animal species were presented. Participants (n = 357) correctly identified, on average, 23% of the plants and 44% of the animals.…

The study reports on species knowledge among German adolescents (n = 507) as: (1) self-assessed evaluation of one's species knowledge; and (2) factual knowledge about popular local herbs and trees. Besides assessing species knowledge, we were interested in whether selected demographic factors, environmental attitude (as measured through the New…

Environmental issues such as climate change are becoming ever more important in today's societies and politics. Information is spread by the media, for example, via the Internet or information brochures, employing different representational styles (e.g. sensational vs. neutral styles, emphasis of human vs. natural causes). We investigated the…