Overcoming plant blindness: are the future teachers ready?

ABSTRACT

Plant blindness refers to the tendency of people to overlook and undervalue plants in their environment, which can have negative consequences for both the environment and human well-being. As pre-service teachers play a key role in shaping the environmental attitudes and knowledge of future generations, it is important to assess their level of plant blindness and identify ways to overcome it. To assess the plant blindness effect among pre-service teachers several tests have been used, including an endangered animals and plants test, an identification test, a memory test, and a blink test. All of the tests indicate that the plant blindness effect is strong among pre-service teachers. This article proposes five different topics that can be integrated into teacher education programs to help future teachers overcome plant blindness, including plant identification skills, the ecological and cultural importance of plants, the use of plants in teaching science and environmental concepts, and the connection between plant knowledge and sustainable behaviours. By incorporating these topics into teacher education programs, they can help future teachers develop a greater appreciation and understanding of plants, which can in turn benefit the environment and human well-being.

KEYWORDS:

• Plant blindness
• teacher training
• sustainability
• biodiversity
• botany education

Acknowledgments

We would like to extend our gratitude to the Teaching Innovation Projects “Design thinking como recurso didáctico para la enseñanza/aprendizaje de los objetivos de desarrollo sostenible (ID2021/162; University of Salamanca)”, “El huerto escolar como herramienta para poner en marcha una iniciativa de aprendizaje-servicio en centros escolares de la ciudad de Ávila (ID2021/190; University of Salamanca)”)” and “ConCienciaDos (University of Valladolid)” for their support in this study. Additionally, we would like to thank the following students who assisted with data gathering: Almudena Costas, Alejandro Álvarez, Roberto Diago y Nerea González. Their dedication and hard work were essential to the success of this project. Finally, we would like to thank all of the pre-service teachers who participated in this study for their time and willingness to contribute to our research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Declarations and ethics statements

Authors declared that the study did not require formal ethics approval since the data was completely anonymous, with no personal information collected. Informed consents were obtained from the research participants. Vulnerable or dependent groups were not included in the study.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/00219266.2023.2255197

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This study has been developed within the framework of the research project TED2021-130300B-C21 funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation.