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The aim of the present paper is to introduce students to tree-thinking through a ludic activity. Phylogenetic trees are the appropriate way to explain biodiversity under the theoretical framework of current evolutionary hypothesis and they should take a central place in public understanding of evolution. Misinterpretation of phylogenies plus the unavailability of didactic material in Spanish for teachers ends up in the reproduction of misunderstandings on the evolutionary theory. The combination of these errors with epistemological problems of evolutionary theories learning generates even more confusion in these subjects. The ludic activity as a learning process provides powerful tools when it comes to acquiring concepts that require abstraction in contents. Educational natural science games, both classical and modern approaches as Game-based learning theory, provide a sense of achievement to players/apprentices and they improve knowledge acquisition. In this context, the activity proposed here invites students to think under the scientific method and it allows them to assimilate abstract concepts by the resolution of evolutionary riddles. This activity gives the concepts to introduce scholars to the study of evolutionary processes, and the diversity of life on Earth under the current educational paradigms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the treatment of the concept of ecosystem services in textbooks of middle and high schools from Spain. We reviewed scientific publications from a "community of experts" in order to define their conceptual frameworks, which act as epistemological referents along the didactic transposition. The majority of 50 analyzed textbooks mentioned some particular goods or ecosystem service examples, but only 10% of these defined their concept (especially earth and environmental science textbooks). These findings are related to the lack of conceptualization in the official curriculum. Direct services from ecosystems were treated more frequently than indirect ones. In addition, rainforests were found to be almost the sole providers of ecosystem goods, as there being an under-representation of the social, cultural and religious values of biodiversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]