Putting nature back into secondary biology education: a framework for integration

ABSTRACT

In the context of England, secondary biology education is dominated by sub-organismal systems, such as physiology, often to the detriment of evolution & ecology and impeding an integrated understanding of biology. This paper proposes a framework that teachers could use to help them consider how the learning of physiological and developmental systems can be combined with ecological and evolutionary thinking. Thus, keeping a balance between anthropomorphic contexts, and those of nature. The framework has two axes: physio-developmental – ecology, and contemporary – evolutionary, from which four quadrants emerge for consideration during topic design. It is proposed that topic design in general should be centred on the whole organism in its environment, which would ensure that physiological phenomena are contextualised in the organism’s ecology. Furthermore, it is proposed that by pedagogical use of comparative biology, an evolutionary perspective can be integrated with organismal systems and ecology, whilst also offering more opportunities for students to discern the pattern being studied and be exposed to more non-human organisms. The framework is designed for practising teachers and would not require a radical change in pedagogy or teaching resources, but a new way of seeing the content and organisation of the course.

KEYWORDS:

• Curriculum design
• autecology
• evolution
• ecology
• physiology

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Lauren Edwards, Fabio Di Salvo, Martyn Steiner, and Kostas Kampourakis for their support and feedback on my ideas and the manuscript. A special thanks to Brett Kingsbury & Alex Sinclair who have responded in kind to my incessant questions and being my main point of support for developing my ideas. Finally, a thanks to the anonymous reviewers whose kind comments have undoubtedly helped develop a better, and clearer, argument.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest to be reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research received no third-party funding