Students' Conceptions of Keeping Fattening Pigs and Dairy Cows: An Exploratory Interview Study with Elementary School Students in North-West Germany

The topic of keeping livestock is very well suited to addressing the ecological, social, and economic aspects of the sustainable production of our food in school lessons. However, the production of animal-based foods is mainly outside the personal experience of children and young people. To derive relevant implications for teaching, this paper explores the following research question: 'What conceptions do elementary school students have about keeping fattening pigs and dairy cows on farms?' In more detail, this study examines students' conceptions of stock sizes, husbandry practices, and feeding of fattening pigs and dairy cows and how these differ between urban and farm students. For this purpose, six elementary school students (M[subscript Age] = 8.8 years, SD = 0.4 ; 83% female) from Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia were interviewed. Three of the subjects were growing up on a conventional farm with fattening pigs. The study is informed by the Model of Educational Reconstruction. To elicit students' conceptions, we used semi-structured guided interviews, during which students made a drawing of a farm that they described in detail. The data were evaluated with the help of qualitative content analysis. The study results show a wide range of conceptions, ranging from naive and unbiased conceptions to clear conceptions of modern, conventional livestock farming.