Understanding of photosynthesis among pupils in vocational and professional secondary education

Photosynthesis is one of the hardest topics that pupils have to learn. Mainly because the topic is so abstract and has different levels of perception. We decided to check pupils knowledge of photosynthesis in vocational and professional secondary education, if they have any misconceptions as it is recorded in different ages of population and different education level in population. The research involved 287 pupils. After the data was analysed, we came to the conclusion that the knowledge of photosynthesis is very low, surveyed pupils have the misconceptions about photosynthesis and celular respiration. In curriculum of professional education is the topic photosynthesis very poorly represented or is not included. We see the possible improvement of knowloedge in modern multimedia and in increasing number of empirical excersises in structure and function of plants. On the other side the education of future teachers must also be improved. If the future teachers were warned in advance of existing misconceptions in photosynthesis and were taught how to eliminate them there would be much less pupils with lack of knowledge and misconceptions