Learning prerequisites for biodiversity education: chilean and german pupils ̉cognitive frameworks and their commitment to protect biodiversity

Abstract

Most international legal frameworks that aim at protecting biodiversity place great importance on educational measures (e.g. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Art. 13a). However, some of the world's regions are more affected by biodiversity loss than others (which are so-called biodiversity hotspots). Resource dilemmas are serious threats to biodiversity, especially in such regions. In resource dilemmas, natural resources are depleted for economic interest, which is, in many cases, required income. Therefore, economic and social aspects must be considered should biodiversity loss be completely understood. However, little is known thus far about learning prerequisites of pupils living in an industrial country, such as Germany, and in a biodiversity hotspot, such as Chile. This dissertation focuses on two important learning prerequisites being: i) pupils' perceptions of biodiversity, biodiversity loss and resource dilemmas, and ii) pupils' commitment to protect biodiversity. Firstly, a qualitative, in-depth interview study was conducted that investigated sixteen to eighteen-year-old Chilean and German learners' perception of biodiversity and its loss (n=24). As a central result, an ecological typeʺ, an economic typeʺ and a balanced typeʺ emerged from the data, showing different perspectives of biodiversity and its loss. Overall, Chilean pupils seemed to have greater difficulties in recognising social aspects of biodiversity loss. Surprisingly, pupils who concentrated on ecological aspects, applied weak ecological knowledge more often. However, some pupils did succeed in integrating ecological, economic, and social aspects. We suggest that interdisciplinary treatment of the subject matter biodiversityʺ is indispensable if learning about sustainable development and ecological learning is to be effective ...