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Understanding plant reproduction is an important goal in biology education. Unfortunately, various studies show that students have difficulties in connecting the stages of plant reproduction. Students' conceptions of the processes of sexual reproduction (e.g. pollination and seed dispersal) remain unclear, although these conceptions appear crucial for understanding plant reproduction. Therefore, the current study focuses particularly on students' conceptions of the processes of plant reproduction. To assess students' conceptions, we used open-ended tasks and analysed the answers through qualitative content analysis. In this contribution we present the results of the task 'Open description of plant reproduction', which asked students to draw and describe their ideas of plant reproduction. The task was completed by 228 Austrian students from secondary school (age 10-18). The results show that students often describe only one of the processes involved in reproduction (either pollination or seed dispersal) but rarely describe the correct consecutive order of both processes. Moreover, many students from all age groups mix pollination and seed dispersal. This implies that it is necessary to address the confusion of these processes explicitly. The presented task can further help to easily assess students' conceptions in class and specifically address students' difficulties and needs.

Citizen science is a rapidly growing emerging field in science and it is gaining importance in education. Therefore, this study was conducted to document the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of biology teachers who participated in a citizen science project involving observation of wild bees and identification of butterflies. In this paper, knowledge about how these biological methods can be taught to students is presented. After two years in the project, four teachers were interviewed and their PCK was captured in the form of content representations (CoRes) and Pedagogical and Professional-Experience Repertoires (PaP-eRs). These results can help future citizen science projects to link their activities to the school curriculum. But not only success can be reported: although one of the project team's aims was to make the Nature of Science accessible to the teachers and students in the course of the project, the teachers did not take this aspect into account. This paper discusses the possible reasons and proposes various strategies for improving citizen science in the context of school biology learning. [This paper was presented at the ERIDOB conference 2016.]

Despite the rising popularity of Citizen Science (CS) projects, there is little empirical evidence for effects on learning outcomes, particularly when young people are involved. It is also often not clear how CS projects are linked to science education (SE) research. The aim of this study was to examine biodiversity CS projects in an outdoor school class context and to measure the effects on individual learning outcomes (ILOs) with a perspective for SE. Five learning outcomes considered important for CS were tested: interest, self-efficacy/mastery, motivation, behaviour and attitude. These ILOs were measured via eight different scales and tested in an evaluation study of a large CS project with 428 students aged 8-18. Students recorded hedgehogs, wild bee activity, birds and butterflies in gardens. Results showed that students' interest and motivation, as well as perceived mastery increased during the project. Most remarkably, positive attitudes towards wild animals, natural gardens and biodiversity rose significantly. For most ILOs there were significant differences between age groups: Primary school students showed the highest ILOs and also provided most database entries. The authors describe how well biodiversity CS projects contribute to SE aims and how discrepancies between educational and scientific aims in CS projects may be addressed.

Societal Impact Statement: It is critical that people understand the importance of plants to all life on Earth, and this must be taught in an understandable and engaging way at an early age. Plant reproduction provides useful real‐life examples for teaching students about the biology of plants. However, what do students actually know about this process? We asked students to complete one of three writing tasks to ascertain their understanding of plant reproduction. Their responses provide useful insight into their conceptions of plant reproduction. Ultimately, better knowledge of students' conceptions of topics like plant reproduction can provide educators with important insights to help guide and improve teaching of plant biology in schools. SummaryTeaching botany is a challenge due to the phenomenon of "plant blindness" and students' general lack of interest in plants. The reproduction of flowering plants can serve as a useful topic for teaching botany by providing a real‐life context to aid learning. However, research has shown that students have difficulties in understanding how the stages of plant reproduction are connected. This study aims to examine students' conceptions of the processes of plant reproduction.Students' conceptions were analyzed in a multi‐method approach. A total of 724 students from fifth to 12th grade (aged 10–18 years) were assessed using three different types of writing and drawing tasks. Students' conceptions were analyzed in a qualitative content analysis.Results show that students struggle to differentiate between pollination and seed dispersal. Moreover, students have better knowledge about the function of seeds than about the function of pollen. Students are most familiar with seed dispersal by wind and pollination by bees.Better knowledge of students' conceptions can greatly aid teaching. Students' awareness of the function of seeds can be used as a starting point for teaching plant reproduction. The writing and drawing tasks of the study can be used in class to assess students' conceptions in an easy way to make conceptions and their development visible to both students and teachers. Knowledge about students' conceptions of plant reproduction can serve as a basis for deeper understanding and improve how plant biology is taught in schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies in the field of second-language-learners in German showed that students apply different strategies if they are exposed to a linguistic overload in school. These strategies very often result in behaviour of avoidance. In this paper, a case study from biology class illustrates a student named Lela who applies an avoidance strategy: She refuses to read schoolbook texts on her own and the autonomous work on a crossword puzzle, too. To capture the reason for Lela's behaviour this case study uses participatory observation protocols (OP) which are analysed via Key-Incident-Analysis. Moreover, we analysed the respective schoolbook texts and the crossword puzzle. Results reveal that Lela's avoidance strategies are not symptoms of laziness or a lack of interest but linguistic complexity in schoolbook texts and missing support of learning language of schooling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable development (SD) is one of the global and central aims of today's politics. As stated in Agenda 21, education must play an essential role in achieving a sustainable society. The present research is focused on Slovenian and Austrian biology teacher students' understanding of SD and education for sustainable development (ESD). The research was carried out at the University of Ljubljana and the University of Vienna. Altogether, 60 Slovenian and 60 Austrian pre-service biology teachers participated in the questionnaire-based study. Pre-service biology teachers answered a set of Likert-type and open survey questions. Less than half of the pre-service biology teachers from Slovenia and Austria had a good understanding of the environmental aspects of SD, but they lack understanding of the interconnections between the environmental, economic and social dimensions related to SD. They describe and connect ESD with environmental education and environmental awareness. Students from both countries know some pedagogical principles of ESD, such as active learning and transformative education. Analysis with the sustainable development goals (SDGs) in focus showed that only some of them were mentioned by the teacher students. The results of the research contribute to the evaluation and development of curriculum for middle and high school biology teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Animal Welfare Attitudes (AWA) are defined as human attitudes towards the welfare of animals in different dimensions and settings. Demographic factors, such as age and gender are associated with AWA. The aim of this study was to assess gender differences among university students in a large convenience sample from twenty-two nations in AWA. A total of 7914 people participated in the study (5155 women, 2711 men, 48 diverse). Participants completed a questionnaire that collected demographic data, typical diet and responses to the Composite Respect for Animals Scale Short version (CRAS-S). In addition, we used a measure of gender empowerment from the Human Development Report. The largest variance in AWA was explained by diet, followed by country and gender. In terms of diet, 6385 participants reported to be omnivores, 296 as pescatarian, 637 ate a vegetarian diet and 434 were vegans ( n = 162 without answer). Diet was related with CRAS-S scores; people with a vegan diet scored higher in AWA than omnivores. Women scored significantly higher on AWA than men. Furthermore, gender differences in AWA increased as gender inequality decreased.