Fifth-grade students' perceptions about grasslands as ecosystems

Biological knowledge has become more and more important in taking personal and social decisions. Biodiversity or biota diversity has been changing also because of human activities affecting natural ecosystems. Ability to recognize changes in the ecosystem allows an individual to have a deep insight into the state of the ecosystem. If we want to make changes in this field, it is necessary to start at the very early stage, with children in the primary school. The base of changes consists of two elements – individual's knowledge and understanding of processes that run out in ecosystems. Deep understanding of biological processes is based on pupils' readiness to accept new explanations about functioning of live systems as their own ones and integrate them into already existing knowledge network, while taking into consideration that effectiveness of learning is strongly connected with previous knowledge. The individual's previous misconceptions often present an obstacle in understanding new concepts. The master's thesis deals with perceptions of class 5 pupils about meadows as ecosystems. The method of sampling was non-accidental, purpose-made. 17 pupils, boys and girls, from one of primary schools in Ljubljana, average age 11 years, took part in the first part of the research. 10 pupils were involved in the qualitative part of the research. We had an interview with each one of them checking their perceptions about ecosystems and processes that are part of them. We wanted to find out how structure and functiong of the ecosystem were understood by the pupils. Furthermore, we wanted to check their view of food relations and energy flow in the ecosystem. Our wish was to get insight into their abilities of connecting their new-found knowledge about ecosystems and check their understanding of human influence on the ecosystem. At the end all the pupils, interviewees, took part in a group conversation which contributed to their understanding of ecology and role of organisms in the ecosystem. The data gained show that the pupils have a lot of different, often wrong conceptions about meadows and ecosystems in general. A larger number of incomplete perceptions is present in the field of understanding the ecosystem functioning, food relations and energy flows in ecosystems. It is obvious that the pupils have problems with understanding and using knowledge of natural sciences. Their knowledge about a meadow as the ecosystem is more or less limited to science phenomena than to their understanding. The results show that the pupils are not as good as expected at the end of the first educational period according to operational objectives and course syllabus, in the areas of use, analysis and synthesis of contents connected with ecosystems and their processes. The dynamics of group conversation had a positive influence on cognitive and affective factors of individual's learning. One of them is their ability to make a food web as a group instead of making food chains as individuals. Another good element was the fact that more pupils showed courage and touched an earthworm being stimulated by their classmates. But we were surprised when we noticed that these pupils had a detailed presentation of an earthworm and a snail (animals which are typical of anthropogenic environments) for the first time during our research and they had wrong perceptions and prejudices about them but they replaced them with more proper ones. The results of the reseach want to point out that perceptions of pupils play an imporant role in natural sciences and expose factors which are, when teaching science at early stages, often, probably unintentionally, neglected and reflect in pupils' misconceptions and later in adults' perceptions as well. They are the ones who by living in the ecosystem co-design it and have influence on it by their actions