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Nature conservation and environmental protection are not only visible in the media, but also play a role in the everyday life of young people, as evidenced by 'Fridays for Future', a demonstration for climate justice. To facilitate the embedding of conservation in school contexts, this study addresses the ideas and approaches which students have with respect to nature conservation, which pro-environmental behaviors they describe, and which variables described in the relevant literature influence their responses. The results of a writing task showed that German students, aged 11-13 years, primarily associate animals with nature conservation and recognize the need for nature conservation. Behavioral intentions primarily demonstrate that students have an existential access to conservation, and only 12% of students implement active behavior in everyday life according to their own statements. Behavioral intentions focus mainly on protection and prevention, which underscores the need to anchor conservation in schools and thereby to increase students' commitment to preserve nature and the environment.

This article presents the development and testing of a content-based video exchange model as a motivating means to introduce lower secondary English learners to English as the language of science. The central goal was that students reach the required curricular content knowledge despite learning some of the content in a foreign language. The model was tested in German seventh-grade classes (n = 133), in which the students communicated with U.S. eighth-graders on the topic of ecology. Following field trips to a forest and a desert ecosystem, students presented and compared biotic and abiotic data in videos. The German students' content knowledge and their motivation were assessed in a pretest/posttest design. They met the curricular outcome requirements, and their motivation was remarkably high at both test times. We discuss implications for further application of the exchange model.

Hands-on activities are considered to be particularly suitable for generating long-term knowledge that increases environmentally friendly behaviour. Appropriate flagship species in a respective curricular context can enable high-quality education. We have developed a teaching concept and material for hands-on activities with bumblebees. This includes aspects of outdoor bumblebee-keeping in a teaching unit, together with the identification of bumblebee species and conservation activity in the context of biodiversity; bumblebees can act as umbrella species because their conservation needs incidentally protect other species. Moreover, the project involves keeping bumblebees indoors in a teaching unit that covers ethology and neurobiology. A total sample size of 188 German high school students from the fifth to seventh grade (lower and intermediate secondary-school levels) participated in the project. We measured students' knowledge about bumblebees in general and insect decline, as well as fear of bumblebees in a pre-test, post-test and follow-up test. Learning enjoyment was also measured in the post-test. Students acquired long-lasting knowledge and considerably enjoyed the learning experience. Fear of bumblebees decreased long-term, although knowledge that bumblebees can sting increased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an instructional model to incorporate English-language communication between international practicing scientists and English learners into secondary science lessons. The aim was to identify a method that lets pupils practice English as the language of science and that elicits positive affective attitudes in the form of task-specific intrinsic motivation. As a central condition, the approach had to be feasible in realistic school settings. The pupils that participated in the two studies presented (total n = 218) were native German speakers and interacted with English-speaking experts in the curricular contexts of cytology and immunology via videos. We assessed pupils' task-specific intrinsic motivation (as defined by their "interest/enjoyment" of the exchange and their "relatedness" to the expert) and compared it to their subject-specific interest in biology and English before and after the project. We further contrasted the motivational ratings of bilingually experienced and inexperienced groups of pupils. Both groups reported similar and remarkably high task-specific intrinsic motivation for the video exchange. Subject-specific interests remained constant before and after implementing the method and were correlated with "interest/enjoyment" in the standard, but not in the bilingually experienced classes. The applicability of the exchange model in different topics, subjects, and student groups is discussed.

While there is increasing world-wide discussion of the importance of renewable biological resources and a bio-based economy, science educators around the world have become aware of a declining general interest in plants and agriculture and of little knowledge of plants among the public. Recently, there have been few systematic investigations on the knowledge of crops. To address this observation, we initiated a questionnaire survey with secondary school students based on the assumption that students should acquire a fundamental knowledge of agriculture and crop-plant biology during compulsory education. As home is a source of information, parents were also questioned. On the whole, 926 German secondary school students aged nine to 18 years and 314 parents participated in our questionnaire survey. The data suggest an unsatisfactory level of knowledge about crop plants among students. Girls have greater knowledge and claim to be interested in crops more often than do boys. While knowledge of species was independent of grade and age, knowledge of crop use did increase with increased years of schooling. Parents showed an overall better performance than the students' on items involving plant recognition and their use.

In terms of sustainability, renewable resources, nourishment and healthy diet, crops are important to the public. Thus, knowledge of crops is needed in order to enable people to participate in public discussions and take responsibility. This is in contrast to former surveys showing that students' knowledge of and interest in plants in general, crop plants and agricultural issues is moderate to little. At the same time, approaches to improving knowledge and interest in school are missing. We initiated and established the Greenhouse Project (GHP) where secondary school students (grades 5-13) get to know crops through cultivating from seed to seed. To investigate whether or not original contact with a variety of staple crops and hands-on activities positively affect students' knowledge, students of two German secondary schools were asked via questionnaires before and after the treatment. Our study was conducted in the cities of Mainz and Wiesbaden which are situated in the German Federal states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse, respectively. In total, 74 students in 6/7th and 11/12th grades took part in this pretest-posttest survey; three additional 6/7th and 11/12th grade classes (i.e. 48 students) were used as control classes, and had no contact with the GHP during this time. We demonstrated that the treatment has positive effects on students' knowledge, and that girls performed better than did boys. Therefore, knowledge of crop plant species, as well as morphological knowledge, improved. A higher level of knowledge cannot only be observed objectively via test scores, but also subjectively via the students' self-assessment of knowledge. In contrast, the students' opinions about and attitudes towards agriculture and crops decreased in the posttest, both in the treatment and control classes.

Biological evolution still lacks representation in school, especially below high school level. In order to find new implications that could help achieve significant improvement in teaching evolution, twelve expert interviews with both renowned researchers and experienced science teachers were conducted. Results of the comparison between the mindsets of scientists and teachers yield the five recommendations that could significantly improve the teaching practices of biological evolution: (1) Evolution should be taught as early as possible and should be exposed as the central concept of biology. (2) Despite the large theoretical framing of biological evolution, many occasions occur for hands-on, creative, and even experimental class-room-activities. (3) Biological evolution allows discussing controversial scientific concepts, illustrating the scientific way to gain knowledge. Thereby, misconceptions held by students could be changed towards a scientific perspective. (4) Biological evolution topics are well suited to practice reflection and evaluation skills, equipping students with the keys to answer questions humans have. (5) Since effective teaching can only succeed with capable teachers, new teaching and training materials for biological evolution issues should be developed.

We present an instructional approach to incorporate into biology lessons an exchange of videos between international practicing scientists and secondary-school students. We validated the approach in German school settings in three curricular contexts: genetics, cell biology, and immunology. The participating students (n = 255) were native speakers of German with a background of English as a foreign language. The three participating scientists, English-speaking experts from the United Kingdom and Uganda, were rooted in different fields that were related to the respective curricular topics. We explain how the video exchange model was developed and evaluate students' comments and suggestions for improvement in a qualitative approach. This is followed by a discussion of implications for future applications. The video exchange was intended to promote English as the language of science in biology lessons. Through personal and genuine insight into science professions, students were able to experience the usefulness of English as a tool for international communication. We argue that the instructional model is applicable to a wide variety of educational contexts, including minority language students and native speakers of English.

The dominant role of English as the global language of science entails a requirement for science teachers to equip their non-native English-speaking students with receptive and productive language skills for communication in scientific contexts. Although science courses with English elements are part of some schools' bilingual programmes, they are usually not available to a wider student audience, but are restricted to high achieving or highly motivated students. The present study was to test whether a newly developed biology content and language integrated learning (CLIL) unit could also benefit standard ninth grade classes. The learning gains and motivation of bilingually inexperienced students were compared to those of a preselected group and a comparison group that had been taught solely in their native language. All participating classes achieved similar gains in content knowledge, and the standard students rated their motivation for bilingual science lessons as positive, albeit not as high as the preselected group. We thus provide evidence against concerns that teaching non-selected students bilingually might lead to deficits in content knowledge acquisition. Following this, we conclude that scientific English should be a part of standard science lessons regardless of specific school programmes.

English connects all areas of science around the world. Productive and receptive English-language skills are thus a crucial tool that schools must provide their students with in order to prepare them for higher education and professional life. The introduction of bilingual instruction of subject matter, often referred to as Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), allows for incorporating English as a medium of communication directly into the science classroom. However, such bilingual lessons are often only accessible in the context of bilingual programmes for which students have to qualify based on their previous performance. The present study assessed the applicability of bilingual modules in non-selected groups of students. For this, a bilingual teaching unit on immunology was developed and implemented in standard German ninth grade classes. After the unit, bilingually taught students showed the same content knowledge gains as their peers who had been taught solely in their native language. Average achievement motivation ratings before and after the unit were medium to high in all classes, and the majority of students was open to more bilingual lessons. An evaluation of student comments provides further indications for the development of future bilingual units.

This case study examines students' perception, motivation, and learning gain of a teaching unit featuring wireless sensors as tools to collect scientific data in the classroom. Students analyze data using the corresponding cellphone app, communicate findings to the class, and learn about a changing environment. Wireless sensors are produced for technology-based science lessons and are therefore suitable for our teaching unit to implement into the secondary school curriculum in the context of ecology. We aimed for very simple experimental setups in order to put the focus on handling the modern technical equipment, to make analyzing and learning from the collected data a priority, and to reduce expenses for teachers on busy schooldays. We validated the approach in German school settings with 67 students aged between 16 and 19 years. We found that our practical approach not only leads to high learning gains combined with learning enjoyment, a feeling of competence, and little perceived pressure but also improves students' understanding of scientific data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]