An Approach to Prospective Primary School Teachers’ Concept of Environment and Biodiversity through their Design of Educational Itineraries: Validation of an Evaluation Rubric

Hortensia Morón-Monge, María del Carmen Morón-Monge, Daniel Abril-López and María Paula Daza Navarro
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Hortensia Morón-Monge: Departamento de Didáctica de las CC. Experimentales y Sociales, Universidad de Sevilla, 41013 Sevilla, Spain
María del Carmen Morón-Monge: Departamento de Didácticas Integradas, Universidad de Huelva, 21007 Huelva, Spain
Daniel Abril-López: Departamento de Geología, Geografía y Medio Ambiente, Universidad de Alcalá, 19001 Guadalajara, Spain
María Paula Daza Navarro: Departamento de Biología Celular, Universidad de Sevilla, Av. Reina Mercedes s/n, 41012 Sevilla, Spain

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 14, 1-21

Abstract: The aim of this work is to promote outdoor activities to bring students closer to the environment and the biodiversity of their surroundings. In this sense, educational itineraries are a very good educational resource that promotes skills developing (scientific, cartographic, educational, etc.) which are necessary for the appropriate design of teaching proposals. The present study is carried out with the prospective primary teachers from the Universities of Sevilla and Huelva (Spain). Firstly, the purpose is to analyse what type of educational itineraries they can design after an outdoor activity. Secondly, a rubric is validated as an instrument of analysis and evaluation immersed in a qualitative methodology. The results show what kind of itineraries are designed, and what knowledge and conceptual difficulties the students display. Most of them do not recognize the minimal of elements making up the itineraries, and have difficulties in understanding the environment as a complex system. In summary, we think that the students’ lacking of knowledge about the environment and its biodiversity, the poor geographic-cartographic competencies that they have, together with their maintenance of traditional conceptions of teaching, do not allow them to design proposals of interest for teaching-learning processes.

Keywords: educational itinerary; teacher training; biodiversity; science education; rubric; interdisciplinary (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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