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Don’t Know Much about Bumblebees?—A Study about Secondary School Students’ Knowledge and Attitude Shows Educational Demand

Many insects are threatened with extinction, which in the case of pollinating insects could lead to declining pollination services and reduced ecosystem biodiversity. This necessitates rethinking how we deal with nature in general. Schools are ideal places in which to instill a willingness to behave...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Sieg, Anne-Kathrin, Teibtner, Rudolf, Dreesmann, Daniel
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6023494/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29642610
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/insects9020040
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author Sieg, Anne-Kathrin
Teibtner, Rudolf
Dreesmann, Daniel
author_facet Sieg, Anne-Kathrin
Teibtner, Rudolf
Dreesmann, Daniel
author_sort Sieg, Anne-Kathrin
collection PubMed
description Many insects are threatened with extinction, which in the case of pollinating insects could lead to declining pollination services and reduced ecosystem biodiversity. This necessitates rethinking how we deal with nature in general. Schools are ideal places in which to instill a willingness to behave in an environmentally-friendly way. Whereas scientific studies and school textbooks stress the importance of honeybees as pollinators, the role of bumblebees is either underestimated or neglected. The aim of this study was to provide information concerning student knowledge and attitudes, which are important factors of an individual’s environmental awareness. A questionnaire with closed and open questions was developed, which also included drawing and species identification tasks. We surveyed 870 German secondary school students between 9 and 20 years of age. Our results indicate limited knowledge of bumblebees by students of all grades. Knowledge increased with higher grades but only with a small effect size. The attitude of students towards bumblebees was generally positive; however, this positivity declined with increasing grade of the participants. This correlation also had a small effect size. Our results are discussed, with a particular focus on future educational demand.
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spelling pubmed-60234942018-07-03 Don’t Know Much about Bumblebees?—A Study about Secondary School Students’ Knowledge and Attitude Shows Educational Demand Sieg, Anne-Kathrin Teibtner, Rudolf Dreesmann, Daniel Insects Article Many insects are threatened with extinction, which in the case of pollinating insects could lead to declining pollination services and reduced ecosystem biodiversity. This necessitates rethinking how we deal with nature in general. Schools are ideal places in which to instill a willingness to behave in an environmentally-friendly way. Whereas scientific studies and school textbooks stress the importance of honeybees as pollinators, the role of bumblebees is either underestimated or neglected. The aim of this study was to provide information concerning student knowledge and attitudes, which are important factors of an individual’s environmental awareness. A questionnaire with closed and open questions was developed, which also included drawing and species identification tasks. We surveyed 870 German secondary school students between 9 and 20 years of age. Our results indicate limited knowledge of bumblebees by students of all grades. Knowledge increased with higher grades but only with a small effect size. The attitude of students towards bumblebees was generally positive; however, this positivity declined with increasing grade of the participants. This correlation also had a small effect size. Our results are discussed, with a particular focus on future educational demand. MDPI 2018-04-10 /pmc/articles/PMC6023494/ /pubmed/29642610 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/insects9020040 Text en © 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Sieg, Anne-Kathrin
Teibtner, Rudolf
Dreesmann, Daniel
Don’t Know Much about Bumblebees?—A Study about Secondary School Students’ Knowledge and Attitude Shows Educational Demand
title Don’t Know Much about Bumblebees?—A Study about Secondary School Students’ Knowledge and Attitude Shows Educational Demand
title_full Don’t Know Much about Bumblebees?—A Study about Secondary School Students’ Knowledge and Attitude Shows Educational Demand
title_fullStr Don’t Know Much about Bumblebees?—A Study about Secondary School Students’ Knowledge and Attitude Shows Educational Demand
title_full_unstemmed Don’t Know Much about Bumblebees?—A Study about Secondary School Students’ Knowledge and Attitude Shows Educational Demand
title_short Don’t Know Much about Bumblebees?—A Study about Secondary School Students’ Knowledge and Attitude Shows Educational Demand
title_sort don’t know much about bumblebees?—a study about secondary school students’ knowledge and attitude shows educational demand
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6023494/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29642610
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/insects9020040
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