Conceptions of prospective biology teachers about the Wadden Sea ecosystem

The present study contributes to the thematization of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Wadden Sea in biology didactics. Despite the uniqueness and high potential of the Wadden Sea ecosystem, especially for out-of-school learning, it has hardly been considered in biology didactics so far. The overall aim of this study is to gain insight into prospective biology teachers' existing conceptions regarding the Wadden Sea. Students are not only learners in their role at the university but prospective teachers as well due to their intended professional goal. Therefore, they can be considered the intersection of these two perspectives and are of particular interest to relevant research projects. In this paper, prospective biology teachers (n = 209, mean age 22.89 years) from Germany were surveyed using a word association test. Associations to the stimulus words Wadden Sea, mudflat hiking tour, tides, national park, and UNESCO World Heritage Site were collected. In the analysis, a category system was developed as literally as possible from the associations. This paper uses mind maps to provide a detailed overview of the identified associations. There was a wide range of identified associations: In addition to subject-area-related and subject-didactic associations, there were experience-oriented associations as well as associations unrelated to the subject. To place these results in context, secondary school students' associations to the same stimulus words are used for comparison. A central commonality is associations that encompass the experience possibilities at the Wadden Sea. In contrast to the secondary school students, the prospective teachers focus more on the school context. Conclusions are drawn regarding the education of biology teachers. In addition to identifying possible future research projects, this study suggests the need to consider the Wadden Sea in university teacher training.