Wink M. 1999. Biochemistry of plant secondary metabolism. Annual plant reviews, Volume 2. 374 pp. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press Ltd. £85 (hardback) and Functions of plant secondary metabolites and their exploitation in biotechnology. Annual plant reviews, Volume 3. 370 pp. Sheffield: Sheffi... (original) (raw)
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The Power Plant: Teacher's Guide to Photosynthesis. Occasional Paper No. 112
1987
This document contains a set of instructional materials about photosynthesis that were used in a research study of middle school science teaching during 1985-86. The Middle School Science Project invrstigated ways t, help middle school science teachers use teaching strategies that were identified in earlier studies as particularly effective in promoting meaningful conceptual-change learning. Such learning requires students to go beyond memorization of facts and terminology and to make sense of scientific explanations of phenomena. For students, such learning in science often requires them to go through a difficult process of conceptual change, reshaping and abandoning ideas or misconceptions that they have developed from enperience and have believed for a long time. The materials include an introductory description of students' difficulties related to learning about photosynthesis, a student text with accompanying comments and suggestions to teachers, a set of overhead transparent masters, and suggested laboratory activities.
Current paper deals with the teaching of photosynthesis in the elementary school. Within the context of analyzing strategies of language mediation, we investigated how intertextuality affects the subject matter and brings to the fore different interpretations. Activities, which were interesting for students in talking science, were also analyzed. Although a set of activities was prepared, current paper focuses on instances related to the production of meanings and involves cultural contexts on science conversations. It is a challenging affair to encourage students to maintain discussions on science in the classroom with the teachers being relatively tolerant with regard to the silence that ensues. Silence is sometimes questioned even though it does not make any progress in teacher-student relationship. Students must be challenged through questions, investigations and differentiated readings. They may be priceless instances for the establishing learning situations through talking science.
Understanding of photosynthesis concepts related to students’ age
2015
In Croatian schools, the complex photosynthesis concept is presented several times during primary and secondary school, each time with more detail. The problems in understanding photosynthesis processes are known from many previous studies and our own research ; thus we aimed to investigate how the students’ understanding of the basic photosynthesis concepts increases during the schooling period, and is it enhanced by gradual introduction of new contents. The present study was conducted on 269 students from 6 schools and 35 students preparing to be biology teachers. To test the students’ conceptual understanding, we implemented a question about the trends of O2 and CO2 gas concentrations during the night, which was expected to lead students to a correct explanation of photosynthesis, including the issues of the plants’ respiration and the absence of photosynthesis. Students of all age groups gave mainly incomplete explanations. The best result was achieved by the youngest participan...
The Truth About Energy & Climate, Chap. 1
the first chapter discusses basic bioenergetics (photosynthesis, respiration), how CO2 is generated and incorporated into the Biosphere, and why this is important to the conversation about climatechange
Secondary students' interpretations of photosynthesis and plant nutrition
Students have varying levels of knowledge about photosynthesis, respiration and energy issues prior to teaching. The relationship between photosynthesis and respiration, and plant ecosystems and the food chain are important topics in biology education. However, students' initial ideas can be hard to change even through teaching biology curricula. This paper studies the misconceptions held by Grade 9 students (14 – 15 years old) in Turkey about photosynthesis and plant nutrition. A questionnaire was constructed comprising seven openended questions designed to test students' conceptions about important areas of plant biology. Results showed that students have conflicting, and often incorrect, ideas about photosynthesis, respiration and energy flow in plant ecosystems, even after teaching. This suggests that students' initial ideas are deep-rooted and difficult to change. By developing science curricula and helping teachers become more aware of students' misconceptions, a different approach to teaching this subject area may help to reduce students' difficulties in understanding the concepts of photosynthesis.
How to Teach Photosynthesis? A Review of Academic Research
Sustainability
This review study focuses on the teaching of photosynthesis, and it builds on previous review studies. The aim of this study is to present the findings to readers and thus contribute to improving the training of future teachers and student education. This study conducted a critical review of the topic of photosynthesis education, by examining 80 systematically selected articles through quantitative and qualitative approaches. The quantitative analysis highlighted the increasing number of studies in recent years and helped identify the main issues, namely teaching methods and misconceptions. In contrast, the qualitative conceptualization showed that photosynthesis education is a key topic for the development of science literacy and serves as a model for how teachers can educate students on difficult and complex issues. An alarming issue is that misconceptions adopted in childhood are powerful and often persist into adulthood (including teachers). Professional education on photosynthe...
Preschool children's perceptions of the role of light and chlorophyll in plants' photosynthesis
International Journal of Educational Innovation, Vol 2, Issue 5 (2020), 2020
The involvement of infants in the natural sciences is considered necessary, because young children seem to form very early their first ideas, interpretations, theories about the concepts and phenomena of the physical world and are therefore able to approach relevant issues at a first level. The purpose of the present study is to investigate preschool children's perceptions regarding the role of light and chlorophyll in photosynthesis of plants. The research was carried out in a full-day kindergarten during the period of November to December 2019, where the researcher was working. The sample of the study consisted of 14 children. Activities and experiments were designed and implemented, based on the Constructive Approach. Data collection was done through semi-structured interviews, observation, and recording of users' actions. Nvivo11 software was used for the quantitative analysis of the data.
Photosynthesis: A Keyword in Cultural Anthropology's "Lexicon for an Anthropocene Yet Unseen"
Photosynthesis is my keyword for this era that we keep calling the Anthropocene. Photosynthesis circumscribes a complex suite of electrochemical processes that spark energy gradients across densely folded membranes inside the symbiotic chloroplasts of green beings (Margulis and Sagan 2000). Textbook diagrams familiar from high-school biology class are simplistic renderings of that utterly magical, totally cosmic alchemical process that tethers earthly plant life in reverent, rhythmic attention to the earth's solar source. The photosynthetic ones-those green beings we have come to know as cyanobacteria, algae, and plants-are sun worshippers and worldly conjurers. Lapping up sunlight, inhaling carbon dioxide, drinking in water, and releasing oxygen, they literally make the world. Pulling matter out of thin air, they teach us the most nuanced lessons about mattering and what really matters: their beings and doings have enormous planetary consequences.
European Journal of Educational Research, 2019
The aim of this study is to present pre-service biology teachers with reading texts about the research of Van Helmont and Joseph Priestley relate to the subject of photosynthesis, for their familiarization with the processual and contextual aspects of science and their understanding of the nature of science, and to reveal the extent to which these texts contribute to the teacher candidates. The study was carried out by “action research method”. The sample consisted of 66 biology pre-service teachers studying at Karadeniz Technical University between the years of 2016 to 2018. In this study, two separate reading texts were prepared in order to increase pre-service teachers’ processual and contextual understanding, and after the teacher candidates had read the texts, they were asked to answer the related questions. Percentage and frequency values were determined by grouping the answers as “correct, partially correct, incorrect and unanswered”. The fact that in this study, only 47% of...
Scientific Conceptions of Photosynthesis among Primary School Pupils and Student Teachers of Biology
• Photosynthesis is the most important biochemical process on Earth. Most living beings depend on it directly or indirectly. Knowledge about photo-synthesis enables us to understand how the world functions as an ecosystem and how photosynthesis acts as a bridge between the non-living and living worlds. It is, therefore, understandable that photosynthesis is included in national curricula around the world. The practice unfortunately shows that students at all school levels mostly learn about photosynthesis by rote. Consequently, they have difficulties understanding this vital process. Research also shows many misconceptions in relation to photosyn-thesis among students of different ages. Based on these, the main aim of our study was to explore the scientific conceptions about photosynthesis held by primary school pupils and student teachers of biology. Data were collected using a questionnaire containing seven biology content questions. The sample consisted of 634 participants, 427 primary school pupils (aged 11–14), and 207 student teachers of biology (aged 20–23). We found that the populations of primary school pupils and student teachers of biology differ greatly concerning scientific conceptions of photosynthesis. The student teachers showed good and complex understanding of photosyn-thesis, while pupils showed some misconceptions (location of chlorophyll and photosynthesis in a plant, transformation of energy in photosynthe-sis). Analysis of the development of scientific conceptions about photo-synthesis with age showed that there is very little progress among primary school pupils and none among biology student teachers. More involvement of student teachers of biology in practical work at primary schools during their study was suggested to make student teachers aware of, and better understand pupils' misconceptions.