Recontextualising biodiversity in school practice

Abstract

The finding that biodiversity is a concept with different context-specific meanings has implications for its conceptual development when students are required to apply it in a diversity of contexts. An approach that may overcome these implications is that students learn to recontextualise one meaning to another. Since no empirical studies were available when this study started, it was decided to conduct a design study to develop a learning and teaching strategy for recontextualising biodiversity. In this paper, the design of such a strategy is presented. Testing of the design in two classes in upper secondary biology education showed that it is largely practisable.