ABSTRACT

Plant blindness has been widely examined in plant education research. However, practical attempts to counteract the common disregard of plants are rare, especially in standard school contexts. We developed and evaluated a teaching concept based upon an ‘Educational Seed Mix’ comprising eight annual species from six different plant families. With it, students aged 10 to 15 can experience plant diversity, connect to their own plant, observe its growth from seed to flower and learn about flower biology in an authentic learning situation. In our evaluation study with secondary school students from Germany (N = 109), we found interest in the project beforehand and feelings of success and high enthusiasm for plant growing afterwards. Further, we found improved performances in tasks concerning taxonomy and flower biology and students showed enhanced concepts of the lifecycle of flowering plants. The project appealed to students as well as teachers. Overall, the Educational Seed Mix is easy to use in school contexts, engages students with plants, and is thus an approach to counteract plant blindness.

摘要

植物失明已在植物教育研究中得到广泛研究。然而，抵制对植物的普遍忽视的实际尝试很少见，尤其是在标准的学校环境中。我们开发并评估了一个基于“教育种子组合”的教学概念，其中包括来自六个不同植物科的八个一年生物种。有了它，10 到 15 岁的学生可以体验植物的多样性，连接到自己的植物，观察它从种子到花朵的生长过程，并在真实的学习环境中了解花卉生物学。在我们对来自德国的中学生（N = 109）的评估研究中，我们发现事前对项目感兴趣，事后感到成功和对植物生长的高度热情。更远，我们发现在分类学和花卉生物学方面的任务表现有所提高，学生们对开花植物的生命周期的概念也有所增强。该项目吸引了学生和教师。总体而言，教育种子混合物易于在学校环境中使用，让学生与植物互动，因此是一种对抗植物失明的方法。