Biodiversity in school textbooks of 13 countries

Biodiversity is the variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, a biome or within the whole Earth. Biodiversity is often used as a measure of the health of biological systems. In this work we analysed the topic “Biodiversity” in the textbooks from ten European countries (Estonia, Finland, France-Lyon, France-Montpellier, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, Portugal, and Romania), two African ones (Morocco, Senegal) and another from the Middle East (Lebanon), since the first grade (6 years old pupils) till the end of the secondary school (12 years old). We used a grid constructed in the context of a European Project “Biohead Citizen” (Biology, Health and Environmental Education for better Citizenship). The results showed that (i) the textbooks highlight the beauty of nature instead of the preoccupation to preserve it; (ii) low importance is given to the preservation of the environment. So it is necessary to give more attention to the textbooks in order to change them to contribute to a make pupils aware of the importance of biodiversity for the future of the planet.European project FP6 “Biohead-Citizen” CIT2-CT-2004-506015. FCT project “Analysis of school textbooks” PTDC/CED/65224/2006. LIBEC/CIFPEC - unidade de investigação 16/644 da FCT