Within environmental education research, there is an ongoing interest in trying to understand what factors might lead to pro-environmental action and pro-environmental behaviours. This study explores the relationship between environmental attitudes and self-perceived action competence for sustainability by combining a questionnaire measuring self-perceived action competence for sustainability (SPACS-Q) with a questionnaire measuring environmental attitudes, the 2 factor Model of Environmental Values (2-MEV-Q), among 236 primary school student teachers in France. Our results show that the SPACS-Q adapted to the French context is largely valid within this sample and that the factor Preservation in the 2-MEV model is a predictor for SPACS. This connection is strongest for the factor Willingness to act. Likewise, we conclude that age impacts the SPACS factor Confidence in one’s own influence, whereas other variables such as training in sustainable development issues do not impact any of the SPACS factors. The study provides some insights into how self-perceived action competence and pro-environmental attitudes might be promoted through education.

Societal Impact Statement Plants are crucial for sustaining life on Earth, and understanding human relationships to plants is key to ensuring that the role of plants is recognized in biology research. This goal cannot be achieved without valid and reliable methods that describe, explain and predict how humans experience plants. Plant awareness is a useful concept that helps researchers understand the individual differences in how people perceive, evaluate and act towards plants. This paper aims to outline the many methodological approaches to researching plant awareness and to critically assess the role plant awareness plays in biology research. Through our suggested guidelines for further methodology development, we hope to strengthen the validity and reliability, and hence the applicability, of scientific work into everyday sustainability and teaching practices. Summary Understanding the relationships between plants and people is crucial because plants sustain life on earth. Plant awareness is one of the key concepts available that help us describe and understand this relationship. Having a strong and clear methodological framework for studying this phenomenon is a necessary condition for building the bridge between the theoretical concept and its application in educational and conservation contexts. Here, we explore and systematize methodologies applied in empirical research concerning the concepts of ‘plant blindness’, ‘plant awareness’ and ‘plant awareness disparity’. We examine 46 unique theoretical and empirical contributions. We discuss the availability and usefulness of existing methodological approaches, applied research designs and measurement tools used as indicators. We present suggestions for their development, and how new research designs could contribute to extant research on plant awareness and related concepts. We found that both qualitative and quantitative research approaches have been successfully applied in the field, and various indicators were used to measure plant awareness. We offer directions for further methodological development, in choice of research design and measurement tools choices.

In this article we consider the use of visual images to assess perceptions of plants. Using data drawn from a Swedish study we review our choices regarding the type of image used, and the responses they provoked. Furthermore, we consider these choices in the light of other studies, propose a tentative model of levels of seeing, and call for further research. In sharing our methodological challenges with the research community, we wish to contribute to current discussions in plant awareness studies. More specifically, to the development of a visual prompt item that is not explicitly connected to knowledge. Thus, the main contribution of this article is to visual research methods in relation to plant awareness studies.

This study examines the conversations of 41 student teachers during visits to a designed rainforest in a greenhouse in a botanical garden in Sweden. The aim of this study is to explore the multimodal affordances of the rainforest for student teachers’ negotiations, and through this obtain an understanding of the potential this environment has for teaching and learning about plants, biodiversity, ecology and life on Earth. Data for this exploratory case study was collected through observations as well as audio recordings of interactions between student teachers. Data was analysed using multiple tools, including thematic analyses and social semiotics. The results show that the walk-through in the rainforest and the encounters with plants awaken curiosity, raise questions and bring about hypotheses. This has implications for and informs teaching about plants and the importance of plants for life on Earth.

In the twenty years since the first theory of 'plant blindness' was published much discussion has ensued concerning this phenomenon. More recent research, not only demonstrates that humans appear to favour animals over plants but also indicates a preference for mammals with forward-facing eyes. For this paper, we analysed answers to an online survey conducted with 202 student primary teachers in Sweden collected over a period of two years. We focus on two open-ended questions concerning favourite plant and animal choices and motivations for these choices. Our intention in this study was not to contrast animal vs. plant, but rather to further explore differential appreciation of plants and animals. Our findings suggest that there are large variations regarding relationships with plants and that affective connections with plant-life are translated through expressions of beauty, symbolic meaning, emotions (life-long) memories, colour, smell and size, and that similar characteristics seem to attract humans to animals. Our results - in line with arguments presented in recent studies - strongly suggest that in biological education and conservation contexts we should rely more intentionally on cultural and personal factors, utilise pre-existing experience-based human-plant bonds, and in so doing reinforce human recognition and appreciation of plants.

Throughout the world, the educational system is expected to deal with issues regarding sustainability and to promote pro-environmental behaviours and attitudes. This study investigates attitudes towards nature and the environment among 1,109 teachers and student teachers in Sweden and France, using the 2 factor Model of Environmental Values (2-MEV). The results imply that in both Sweden and France, teachers and student teachers hold a prevailingly ecocentric attitude, as opposed to an anthropocentric attitude, which possibly indicates a predominantly positive approach towards the environment and environmental education. Comparisons between the countries show, however, that the Swedish teachers and student teachers hold a more anthropocentric attitude than the teachers and student teachers in the French sample.

Professional knowledge for science teaching develops over time and interplays with professional experiences in field. In the present study, we explore student teachers' reflective conversation upon teaching experiences, with pedagogical content knowledge, PCK, as an analytical lens. The empirical data is based on nine meetings, with groups of 3-6 student teachers with an academic degree, at three different periods during their one-year short-track teacher education program. The findings show how student teachers focus on the PCK component instructional strategies in their discussion. A difference between the different sets of meetings is the increased presence of discussions regarding assessment of student learning. The findings also elicit different ways of relating components of PCK in varying contexts. The shift over time from a focus on teachers' instructional strategies to also including students' understanding indicates a development toward becoming a teacher. Even though a structured discussion with theoretically grounded didactic questions is established, it is challenging to deepen the discussion when the student teachers' varying teaching experiences are present at the same time. Nevertheless, the study shows the possibilities of structured group discussions about field experiences in a collegial setting in a short-track teacher education program, regarding student teachers' development as "becoming teachers."

Societal Impact StatementEducational experiences where the ecological and social significance of plants is the main focus are crucial tools to help us to overcome “plant blindness” and challenge “zoocentric” views. By examining how student teachers respond to two different educational environments; one where animals are in the foreground, and another where plants take center stage, we conclude that for plants to be noticed in animal‐rich environments, they need to be prominent in the design of spaces with information about them displayed clearly. This work will help inform the design and creation of tools that will enhance and develop plant science education. Summary Plants are not only essential for human health and well‐being, but are fundamental to life on Earth. Despite their central importance in sustaining life on this planet, many humans do not notice plants to the same extent as they do animals, a phenomenon described as “plant blindness”. Research indicates that multimodal and sensoric experiences might be significant tools for bringing about a shift away from plant blindness toward recognizing plants and their importance for life on Earth. This study seeks to explore the affordances of sensory‐rich indoor environments in two different settings; one where living animals are in the foreground (a science center), and one where living plants are in the fore (a greenhouse in a botanical garden). The participants in this study were elementary school student teachers. Data were collected through individual questionnaires that examined the student teachers' experiences visiting the two sites. The student teachers' answers are rich in aesthetic expressions, both regarding the animals and plants mentioned and regarding the environments studied. There is a dominance of animal references at the science center and a dominance of plant references from the botanical garden. In order for plants to be noticed in animal‐rich environments, they need to be foregrounded in the design of spaces and information about them clearly exposed to human view.

In this study we investigate teachers’ collegial discussions about students’ science knowledge, in a context of collaborative planning and evaluation of teaching concerning the human body. The empirical data consists of recordings of four meetings with researchers and one team of science teachers in a Swedish compulsory school. This study contributes to the understanding of collegial discussions as such and in particular what the teachers attend to as salient science knowledge. Making use of a phenomenographic approach, the result consists of a set of categories of teachers’ qualitatively different ways of expressing students’ science knowledge. When teachers relate the students’ science knowledge to their teaching it opens for an interdependent approach to teaching and assessment, in contrast to an instrumental way of viewing scientific knowledge, particularly in grading situations. We discuss how the identified qualitative differences have implications for teachers’ possibilities of professional development, e.g. regarding subject didactical knowledge.

The aim of this study was to explore a team of teachers’ ( n =4) use of theoretically based formative assessment strategies within the course of a learning study. The thematic analysis is based on video observations of teachers’ discussions during planning meetings, teaching in the classroom and evaluation meetings. The subject-specific content focused on learning about fractions, specifically the concepts of double and half, in three groups of six- to seven-year-old students ( n =51 in total). An iterative process was used in which the teachers in the study used video recordings as a tool for analyzing their work in the classroom. The thematic analysis shows that the use of a general learning theory – variation theory ­– strengthens the effect of the teachers’ formative assessment. Without explicit use of the assumptions from the theoretical framework, the formative assessment strategies had only a minor impact on students’ learning outcomes.

Teachers' pro-environmental behaviour, conceptions and attitudes towards nature and the environment were investigated using 47 questions from the BIOHEAD-Citizen questionnaire. The sample ...

This study aims to describe how the learning study model can be used to improve lesson design and children’s learning outcomes by enabling them to perceive and define the critical aspects of the object of learning, guided by variation theory. Three lesson designs were used with three groups of children (A = 24, B = 13, C = 14) from two schools. The results of the first design were analyzed before the second lesson was designed and conducted in a new group, and the results of the second were analyzed before the third was designed. The patterns of variation were based on simultaneous discernment of a base amount and half or double that amount. This was made to prevent the children from understanding doubling as just copying the original amount without including the original amount in the total sum, giving the double of 4 is 4 instead of 8. The use of varied original amounts made the children separate the concepts double and half from the amount, to conceive them as relative, rather than constant, values. The results show increased learning outcomes in all groups; however, differences between pre- and posttest were significant only for Group B (p = .015).

The notion of plant-blindness, the inability of humans to notice plants in their environment, has been much examined. Similarly, plant scientists have criticised the seemingly zoocentric focus of a biological education, which appears to neglect plants. Furthermore, there are stark contrasts between the active plant behaviours evidenced in current research journals and their seemingly lacklustre counterparts in school curricula. By utilising a body of relevant literature and drawing on empirical data sets, the authors consider the ways in which affective experiences, through personal encounters, observations and guided explorations, can enhance students' attention to the 'green side of life'.

Teachers' understanding of genetic determinism : A comparative study between Sweden and France