Margareta Ekborg

How Student Teachers Use Scientific Conceptions To Discuss a Complex Environmental Issue.

This paper focuses upon the extent to which student teachers develop conceptual understanding about key scientific principles through their training, and the extent to which they can deploy this knowledge in discussions of complex environmental issues. All students involved in the teacher-training programme answered a questionnaire — before and after their first term of the programme — in which their conceptions of respiration and photosynthesis were tested. 15 students were also interviewed about a newspaper article that discusses the ethicality of using surplus heat from a crematorium in the far heating system. They were asked to comment on the article, to pose questions about the issue and explicitly asked what happens to the bodies if either combusted or buried. The first results show that some students, though not the majority, develop their ability to answer conceptual questions about scientific content as a result of their first science course. However, even among these students, the task of deploying this conceptual understanding in discussions of complex, socially relevant questions proved very difficult. Most students expressed personal opinions without using scientific arguments. It may be that the students have not developed the ability to recognise and distinguish different contexts or that the learning situation has not been challenging enough.

Welcome to ERIDOB

It is once again my privilege to welcome the European Researchers in Didactics of Biology (ERIDOB) to the Journal of Biological Education. The 2012 meeting was held at the Freie Universität in a leafy suburb of Berlin in September. An ERIDOB meeting has a special atmosphere which is unlike other academic conferences I have attended. The numbers are normally quite small, as conferences go, and most participants present a paper or a poster. All papers and posters have to go through a peerreview process to be included in the programme and so the academic quality is high. Most of the participants know each other, making the event academically focused in an almost family atmosphere which welcomes newcomers. For anyone who is passionate about research in biological education at its best and enjoys the company of like-minded people from Europe and farther afield I recommend a few days at ERIDOB. The Berlin meeting departed from previous such meetings in two ways: instead of one theme there were several, and instead of an essentially linear sequence of presentations attended by all delegates in 2012 there were several parallel sessions. The family atmosphere and the opportunity to meet new people extended into an interesting evening river boat trip through Berlin and a memorable banquet in a huge greenhouse at the Berlin Botanic Garden. There are so many good papers at an ERIDOB conference that it is very difficult to select six for a special issue of JBE. A shortlist of papers that had already been peer reviewed was provided by the ERIDOB organising committee. These were further peer reviewed by members of the JBE Board, who made the final choice. I now hand over to Dirk Krueger and Margareta Ekborg to write the Guest Editorial. Dirk Krueger, of the Freie Universität, Berlin, was the local organiser of the 2012 conference. Margareta is from the University of Malmö, Sweden.