What Is Most Desirable for Nature? An Analysis of Azorean Pupils’ Biodiversity Perspectives When Deciding on Ecological Scenarios

Understanding pupils’ biodiversity perspectives is essential to developing educators’ sensitivity to students’ multi-faceted views of the world, thus increasing teaching effectiveness. In this study, we asked 1528 school pupils in the Azores to choose between alternative schemes in three ecological scenarios and to justify their decisions. The study’s objectives were to understand biodiversity perspectives underlying pupils´ choice of the most desirable schemes for nature and to examine whether gender and school level (middle school/high school) influenced their choices. Quantitative (frequency analysis and Chi-square statistics) and qualitative (thematic analysis) methods were applied for data analysis. The majority of pupils made appropriate choices, arguing from different biodiversity perspectives, which were classified in 10 categories and 24 subcategories. High school pupils did not exhibit significant differences among the main arguments employed, and mostly referred to ecological concepts, while middle school pupils exhibited different choices according to gender, emphasizing richness over the threats posed by introduced species. Biodiversity education should thus be strengthened, especially at the middle school level, where different complex issues would benefit from classroom discussion and systematization. The chosen methodological strategy proved to be effective in assessing pupils’ biodiversity perspectives, which may be useful to deal with other ill-structured problems.

The Alliance of Community-Owned Water Services in Europe: Opportunities and Challenges Based on the Irish Perspective

The foundation of the Alliance of Community-Owned Water Services in Europe (ACOWAS-EU), established during the consultation period for the 2020 recast of the European Drinking Water Directive, has shone a new light on community-owned drinking water supplies (CoDWS). CoDWS are drinking water supplies that are administered, managed, and owned by the local community membership that each supply serves. This paper reviews the presence of CoDWS within the five founding regions of ACOWAS-EU—Austria, Denmark, Finland, Galicia in Spain, and Ireland—and the co-operative model structure that underpins the sector. Although the co-operative structure for CoDWS has been prominent since the mid-20th century (and sometimes even earlier), there is a dearth of research into the sector’s importance and existence in an international context. Through a detailed case study, the Irish CoDWS sector (known in Ireland as the group water scheme sector) is analysed in depth, in terms of both its evolution and the opportunities and challenges it faces today. Areas, such as water quality, biodiversity, education, and community-involvement are discussed in particular, providing key learnings that may also be of benefit to the other CoDWS sectors within ACOWAS-EU and further afield.

CONSIDERING THE ROLE OF BOTANIC GARDENS AND ARBOTETUM FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF ECOLOGICAL EDUCATION

Today, the question of the need for environmental education is of particular importance. It is necessary to restore harmonious ties between man and nature, and this is possible only in contact with the natural environment itself. The irrational use of natural resources, the progressing economic activity of man, which does not take into account the laws of the development of natural systems, lead to a change in natural processes, a violation of the balance of the biosphere. Analysis of various approaches to educational activities in the field of environmental culture revealed the importance of specially protected natural areas in environmental education. They have unique benefits for biodiversity education by providing visual illustrations of the diversity of natural ecosystems.

Scanning Signatures: A Graph Theoretical Model to Represent Visual Scanning Processes and A Proof of Concept Study in Biology Education

In this article we discuss, as a proof of concept, how a network model can be used to analyse gaze tracking data coming from a preliminary experiment carried out in a biodiversity education research project. We discuss the network model, a simple directed graph, used to represent the gaze tracking data in a way that is meaningful for the study of students’ biodiversity observations. Our network model can be thought of as a scanning signature of how a subject visually scans a scene. We provide a couple of examples of how it can be used to investigate the personal identification processes of a biologist and non-biologist when they are carrying out a task concerning the observation of species-specific characteristics of two bird species in the context of biology education research. We suggest that a scanning signature can be effectively used to compare the competencies of different persons and groups of people when they are making observations on specific areas of interests.

FutureForest: Promoting Biodiversity Literacy by Implementing Citizen Science in the Classroom

The terms Anthropocene and Homogenocene are frequently used to describe our current epoch, which is characterized by strong human impacts on the environment. One defining feature of the Anthro- or Homogenocene is biodiversity loss – experts say we are heading for Earth's sixth mass extinction. A crucial weapon in the battle against threats to biodiversity is education, particularly biodiversity literacy. Raising awareness of the social and environmental value of biodiversity, providing education on the concept of biodiversity, and promoting the ability to act may lead to active and responsible citizenship. We developed a biodiversity education teaching unit to promote biodiversity literacy through formal education. To make the topic of biodiversity tangible for students, our approach involves them in a citizen science project and uses the forest ecosystem to illustrate the relations between economic, ecological, and social aspects of biodiversity.