PARENT SESSION
Thursday, August 10, 1:30-5:00 pm
COS 95 - Ecological education I: undergraduate teaching
L-2, Lobby Level, Cook Convention Center
Presiders: J Berkson
It's not easy being green: addressing plant blindness when teaching.
Schussler, Elisabeth*,1, Olzak, Lynn1, 1 Miami University, Oxford, OH
ABSTRACT- Researchers have documented disparity in student interest in plants versus animals, as well as the use of plant and animal examples in biology classes. While many attribute this to zoochauvinism of teachers, this research investigates the human barriers to "seeing" plants - plant blindness. Plant blindness hypothesizes a cognitive sorting of visual information that discards the uniform, non-moving greenness of the plant world, resulting in students and teachers failing to recognize or remember plants in their everyday lives (including instruction). To test this hypothesis, 133 students were presented fifty images of plants and animals (25 of each) and asked to record the most specific name they knew for the organism. Each image was assigned a "nameability" percentage by clustering acceptable names and dividing by the total number of participants. The animal images had an overall nameability of 92%, while the plants had an overall nameability of 65%. From this study, plant and animal images were paired based on their nameability for a second study in which students were asked to view the images, perform a distracting task, and then recall as many images as they could. Two populations of students were used - students taking general psychology and students taking a botany class (tested during their class time). This study tested for the existence of a bias in remembering animal versus plant images, and whether being "primed for plants" improves plant recall ability. The results of both studies will be discussed in the context of ecology education and the presentation of plant examples during instruction.
Key words: ecology education, plant education, effective teaching