Argues that biology should be learnt in the living world not in the classroom. Field ecological education is essential. Ecology is ideal candidate for implementing proposed transformations in science curricula. Ecology education is the missing link in educational reform . Crucial in developing biological literacy for citizen

Korfiatis, Konstantinos

Tunnicliffe, Sue

English

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Journal of Biological Education
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The living world in the curriculum: ecology, an
essential part of biology learning
Konstantinos J. Korfiatis a & Sue Dale Tunnicliffe b
a Department of Education, University of Cyprus, Cyprus
b Institute of Education, University of London, UK
Version of record first published: 17 Aug 2012
To cite this article: Konstantinos J. Korfiatis & Sue Dale Tunnicliffe (2012): The living world in the curriculum: ecology, an
essential part of biology learning, Journal of Biological Education, 46:3, 125-127
To link to this article:  http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00219266.2012.715425
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
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reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to
anyone is expressly forbidden.
The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents
will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses
should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions,
claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or
indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
Editorial
The living world in the curriculum:
ecology, an essential part of biology
learning
Konstantinos J. Korfiatisa and Sue Dale Tunnicliffeb
aDepartment of Education, University of Cyprus, Cyprus; bInstitute of Education, University
of London, UK
Observing organisms and their habitats, as well as
their feeding and mating behaviour, is part of the
early experience of children and forms part of their
early learning before formal educational starts. A
two-year-old boy had five words for plants and five
for animals in his first fifty words (Tunnicliffe in
press). In other words, ecology forms part of the
conceptual framework within which a child compre-
hends the world from the very early stages of life.
However, the science of ecology, ie the study of the
relationships of living organisms between each other
and their non-living environment, covers a rather
tiny part of most national science education curric-
ula. Indeed, most of the ‘ecological’ content of sci-
ence textbooks is in fact about taxonomy,
morphology or physiology, rather than ecology per
se (ie patterns of population growth, dynamics of
intra-specific and inter-specific relationships, struc-
ture and function of ecological systems, flow of
energy and matter through ecosystems).
Moreover, or maybe as a result of the above, ecol-
ogy teaching is characterised by what we could call
teaching of ‘ecological bytes’ (echoing Tunnicliffe and
Ueckert 2007) rather than a comprehending and thor-
ough understanding of ecological systems’ structure
and function. Not surprisingly, research on students’
understanding of ecology often ends up with com-
ments such as ‘it is clear that students can enter and
leave ecology courses with naive understanding of
ecology’ (Stamp, Armstrong, and Biger 2006, p. 168).
However, nowadays, an important body of research
has been accumulated, offering valuable insights for
improving ecology education. It is possible to create
an integrated framework for reforming ecological
curricula by putting together the different insights that
ecological educational research is offering.
First of all, research has highlighted the importance
of ‘real ecology’ in contrast with ‘book ecology’.
The outdoors is not just a setting which could add
value to education; it is the starting point of ecologi-
cal research: authenticity in ecology education has no
meaning without field experiences. The first-hand
study of the natural world should be the main part of
education, especially in the pre-school and first
schooling years. Such an emphasis would lay the
foundations for sound future biology learning, based
on first-hand observations and experiences. Through
first-hand real ecology, students gain a ‘feeling for
the organism’ (sensu Fox-Keller 1983), which pro-
vides a foundation for understanding more abstract
representations of species and ecosystems. Indeed,
abstract concepts such as food webs can be easily
grasped by early primary school children if their
teaching is based on the study of the organisms living
in, for example, the pond or the lawn of the local
park, and the ways in which such organisms cover
their trophic needs (Demetriou, Korfiatis, and Con-
stantinou 2009).
Field ecological education for pre-school and
school-aged children is not just an outdoor recrea-
tional activity (not that walking long distances in the
wild, or camping in a natural area is not a part of
ecological research and therefore of ecological educa-
tion). Nor is it an unstructured, loose activity of
observing and collecting specimens in the outside
environment. It is an educational activity which pre-
supposes careful design and it deploys skills in
advanced levels. It has been shown that students have
to be trained in the use of equipment and techniques
before they are confident and competent in making
scientific-type observations in the field (Eberbach
and Crowley 2009).
Modelling, ie the process of generating representa-
tions of ideas, objects, events, processes, or systems,
is a major issue for science education in general, and
ecology education in particular (Gilbert and Boulter
Corresponding author: Konstantinos J. Korfiatis. Email: korfiati@ucy.ac.cy
JOURNAL OF BIOLOGICAL EDUCATION, VOLUME 46, NUMBER 3, SEPTEMBER 2012 125
Journal of Biological Education ISSN 0021-9266 print/ISSN 2157-6009 online  2012 Society of Biology
http://www.tandfonline.com
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00219266.2012.715425
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2000). Models of all kinds are major constitutes of
ecological theory (for many they are the theory), and
modelling is a major part of scientific activity in
ecology. The development of modelling skills is also
an aim for current education (National Research
Council 2012). This can be achieved from ecology
education because (a) it can offer, for younger ages, a
range of phenomena (such as food webs or the cycle
of water) which children can easily model after their
first-hand encounters and observations of ‘real life’
rather than vicarious observation from books; (b) a
range of role plays and physical activities has been
developed by educators, which allows children to
model ecological processes (eg predator–prey rela-
tionships), such as those included in Project WILD
and Project WET developed in the USA; (c) ecolog-
ical scientific theorising, which is heavily based on
modelling, and can offer appropriate examples for
every age level of learners. Computer simulations
offer the necessary means for studying more abstract
ecological models, so that ecological processes which
are difficult to observe in nature, or to study in a
laboratory setting (patterns of population growth,
seasonal oscillations, flow of energy, etc) can be suc-
cessfully discussed and studied in this way.
Thus we argue that we should promote the idea
of a ‘progressive-spiralling’ curriculum of ecology,
which will include an essential portion of outdoor
learning, especially at the early years of education
and recognising the essential pre-school experiences.
In such a concerted approach, outdoor activities will
form, among other things, the basis for the develop-
ment of models and modelling skills, as well as deep
biological literacy and understanding. Gradually, sim-
ulations can be integrated in parts of the curriculum,
allowing for larger degrees of theorising and compre-
hending of the explanatory patterns and the nature of
ecology. In that way, an ecology curriculum will
start in the field but may well end (during upper ele-
mentary and high school grades) in the computer
labs.
We have not yet referred to the most ‘typical’
image of education in current school science: that of
laboratory or classroom inquiry. It has become obvi-
ous from the above that laboratory inquiry alone is
not enough for the teaching and understanding of
ecology. However it is necessary and vital for both
the comprehension of ecological processes and the
interaction with individual specimens. Cultivation of
a shrimp habitat in a bottle, keeping terraria or aqua-
ria in classrooms, or cultivating plants in pots are
exemplary settings for ecological experimentation.
However, in many cases there is not a perceivable
educational value in conducting ecological experi-
ments in a hypothesis-testing, single-lesson manner.
A rather ‘project-like’ fashion, with long-stay install-
ments, starting with observations and integrating pre-
vious knowledge, allowing for multipurpose activities
and an open agenda, has been reported to be more
proper for ecology’s teaching and learning (Tomkins
and Tunniclife 2001).
We suggest that, in such a way, and through
teaching the relevant content at the appropriate level
and with an appropriate methodology, students can
reach an understanding of natural systems, and of the
role of their parts, their functions and associated con-
cepts. The living world, ie the subject of ecology, is
a system. In the new K-12 framework for science
education just released by the US National Research
Council, the importance is emphasised of organising
science-teaching material around crosscutting con-
cepts including that of ‘system’, ‘system model’,
‘structure and function’, and ‘cause and effect’
(National Research Council 2012). Learning about
systems demands an integrated, though multifaceted
approach, which will illuminate which are the ele-
ments of the system, which is the role of each ele-
ment and of the system as a whole, as well as the
behaviour of each part and of the system as a whole.
In the case of ecology education, the outdoor part of
a learning curriculum is absolutely necessary for
developing a knowing of the ‘parts’ of the system (ie
individual specimens, species, etc), and to start pon-
dering their role. Long-term open experimental set-
tings, such as terraria, are important for observing
and comprehending roles (eg role of decomposers),
but models and computer simulations are the most
effective tools for comprehending the behaviour of
the system (eg behaviour of an ecosystem after a fire).
Another important aspect of teaching ecology is
introducing students to a discussion on the Nature of
Science (NOS) in a somehow different manner than
it is currently. NOS studies often create a picture of
science that has axiomatic laws; progressing through
controlled laboratory experiments and using simple
hypothesis-testing exercises for testing predictions
and creating explanations.
Without denying the importance of the above
practices for science and science education, ecology
provides authentic experiences of issues that are also
characteristic of scientific practice, but are not often
taken into account when teaching NOS.
Ecology also provides authentic examples of scien-
tific theories that are not consisting of axiomatic
laws, but rather from a set of models and general
statements (not necessarily having the status of law)
that offer a comprehensive explanatory picture of
how nature works. Thus, ecology curricula could
provide a more pluralistic approach to teaching and
learning NOS.
Therefore, we believe that putting all the above
pieces together, a transformed picture of school sci-
ence teaching and learning is created that is not
focused exclusively in classroom lectures, laboratory
126 EDITORIAL ______________________________________________________________________________________________________
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experiments and simple hypothesis testing. In that
aspect we think in accordance with many recent calls
for transforming school inquiry. Indeed, it seems that
in recent years there has been a movement toward
transforming school inquiry, criticising the overem-
phasis on laboratory-based experimental inquiry, and
arguing for more modelling and theoretical and com-
munication activities, to which we will add outdoor
activities as well (National Research Council 2007,
2012; Braund and Reiss 2006; Roth 2008).
We suggest that ecology is the ideal candidate for
implementing the proposed transformations in sci-
ence curricula, and thus it deserves a larger part in
school curricula. Ecology education is, in our opin-
ion, the missing link in educational reform, integrat-
ing outdoor education, ICT, and systems thinking,
connecting science with everyday experience, and
developing scientific skills for very young children,
encouraging modelling activities, and promoting
greening of the curriculum.
It also provides more flexibility for teachers who
want to engage their students in practices that fall out-
side of the typical conceptions of scientific endeavour.
As Bower and Roth (2007) argued, we simply cannot
model all science teaching on a few classroom or labo-
ratory classes and continue to believe that we are
offering a science for all. Understanding the practices
of ecologists is an important step to elaborating the
practices found in scientific research that have been
long ignored in classroom curricula and in developing
biological literacy in citizens.
References
Bowen, G.M., and W.M. Roth. 2007. The practice of field ecology:
Insights for science education. Research in Science Education 37: 171–87.
Braund, M., and M. Reiss. 2006. Towards a more authentic science curric-
ulum: The contribution of out-of-school learning. International Journal of
Science Education 28: 1373–88.
Demetriou, D., K. Korfiatis, and C. Constantinou. 2009. Comprehending
trophic relations through food web construction. Journal of Biological Edu-
cation 43: 53–9.
Eberbach, C., and K. Crowley. 2009. From everyday to scientific observa-
tion: How children learn to observe the biologist’s world. Review of Edu-
cational Research 79: 39–68.
Fox-Keller, E. 1983. A feeling for the organism: The life and work of Barbara
McClintock. San Francisco: WH Freeman.
Gilbert, J.K., and C.J. Boulter. 2000. Developing models in science education.
Dordrecht. The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
National Research Council. 2007. Taking science to school: Learning and teach-
ing science in grades K-8. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
National Research Council. 2012. A framework for K-12 science education:
Practices, crosscutting concepts, and core ideas. Washington, DC: The
National Academies Press.
Project WET Staff. 2006. Project WET curriculum and activity guide. Council
for Environmental Education, www.projectwet.org.
Project WILD Staff. 1995. Project WILD curriculum and activity guide. Project
WILD International Foundation and Council for Environmental Educa-
tion, www.projectwild.org.
Roth, W.M. 2008. Authentic science for all and the search for the ideal
biology curriculum: A personal perspective. Journal of Biological Education
43: 3–5.
Stamp, N., M. Armstrong, and J. Biger. 2006. Ecological misconceptions,
survey III: The challenge of identifying sophisticated understanding. Bul-
letin of the Ecological Society of America 87: 168–75.
Tomkins, S.P., and S.D. Tunnicliffe. 2001. Looking for ideas: Observation,
interpretation and hypothesis-making by 12-year-old pupils undertaking
science investigations. International Journal of Science Education 23: 791–813.
Tunniclife, S.D. In press. Talking and doing science in the early years. London,
UK: Fulton.
Tunnicliffe, S.D., and C. Ueckert. 2007. Teaching biology: The great
dilemma. Journal of Biological Education 41: 51–2.
__________________________________________________________________________________EDITORIAL 127
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A feeling for the organism: The life and work of Barbara McClintock.

A framework for K-12 science education: Practices, crosscutting concepts, and core ideas.

Authentic science for all and the search for the ideal biology curriculum: A personal perspective.

Comprehending trophic relations through food web construction.

Developing models in science education. Dordrecht. The Netherlands:

Ecological misconceptions, survey III: The challenge of identifying sophisticated understanding.

From everyday to scientiﬁc observation: How children learn to observe the biologist’s world.

Looking for ideas: Observation, interpretation and hypothesis-making by 12-year-old pupils undertaking science investigations.

Project WET curriculum and activity guide. Council for Environmental Education,

Project WILD curriculum and activity guide.

Taking science to school: Learning and teaching science in grades K-8.

Teaching biology: The great dilemma.

The practice of ﬁeld ecology: Insights for science education.

Towards a more authentic science curriculum: The contribution of out-of-school learning.

The Living World in the curriculum: ecology, an essential part of biology learning

Konstantinos J. Korfiatis

Sue Dale Tunnicliffe

Crossref

Journal of Biological Education

The living world in the curriculum: ecology, an essential part of biology learning

UCL Discovery

This article was downloaded by: [Institute of Education]On: 21 August 2012, At: 07:00Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: MortimerHouse, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UKJournal of Biological EducationPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjbe20The living world in the curriculum: ecology, anessential part of biology learningKonstantinos J. Korfiatis a & Sue Dale Tunnicliffe ba Department of Education, University of Cyprus, Cyprusb Institute of Education, University of London, UKVersion of record first published: 17 Aug 2012To cite this article: Konstantinos J. Korfiatis & Sue Dale Tunnicliffe (2012): The living world in the curriculum: ecology, anessential part of biology learning, Journal of Biological Education, 46:3, 125-127To link to this article:  http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00219266.2012.715425PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLEFull terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditionsThis article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematicreproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form toanyone is expressly forbidden.The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contentswill be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug dosesshould be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions,claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly orindirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.EditorialThe living world in the curriculum:ecology, an essential part of biologylearningKonstantinos J. Korfiatisa and Sue Dale TunnicliffebaDepartment of Education, University of Cyprus, Cyprus; bInstitute of Education, Universityof London, UKObserving organisms and their habitats, as well astheir feeding and mating behaviour, is part of theearly experience of children and forms part of theirearly learning before formal educational starts. Atwo-year-old boy had five words for plants and fivefor animals in his first fifty words (Tunnicliffe inpress). In other words, ecology forms part of theconceptual framework within which a child compre-hends the world from the very early stages of life.However, the science of ecology, ie the study of therelationships of living organisms between each otherand their non-living environment, covers a rathertiny part of most national science education curric-ula. Indeed, most of the ‘ecological’ content of sci-ence textbooks is in fact about taxonomy,morphology or physiology, rather than ecology perse (ie patterns of population growth, dynamics ofintra-specific and inter-specific relationships, struc-ture and function of ecological systems, flow ofenergy and matter through ecosystems).Moreover, or maybe as a result of the above, ecol-ogy teaching is characterised by what we could callteaching of ‘ecological bytes’ (echoing Tunnicliffe andUeckert 2007) rather than a comprehending and thor-ough understanding of ecological systems’ structureand function. Not surprisingly, research on students’understanding of ecology often ends up with com-ments such as ‘it is clear that students can enter andleave ecology courses with naive understanding ofecology’ (Stamp, Armstrong, and Biger 2006, p. 168).However, nowadays, an important body of researchhas been accumulated, offering valuable insights forimproving ecology education. It is possible to createan integrated framework for reforming ecologicalcurricula by putting together the different insights thatecological educational research is offering.First of all, research has highlighted the importanceof ‘real ecology’ in contrast with ‘book ecology’.The outdoors is not just a setting which could addvalue to education; it is the starting point of ecologi-cal research: authenticity in ecology education has nomeaning without field experiences. The first-handstudy of the natural world should be the main part ofeducation, especially in the pre-school and firstschooling years. Such an emphasis would lay thefoundations for sound future biology learning, basedon first-hand observations and experiences. Throughfirst-hand real ecology, students gain a ‘feeling forthe organism’ (sensu Fox-Keller 1983), which pro-vides a foundation for understanding more abstractrepresentations of species and ecosystems. Indeed,abstract concepts such as food webs can be easilygrasped by early primary school children if theirteaching is based on the study of the organisms livingin, for example, the pond or the lawn of the localpark, and the ways in which such organisms covertheir trophic needs (Demetriou, Korfiatis, and Con-stantinou 2009).Field ecological education for pre-school andschool-aged children is not just an outdoor recrea-tional activity (not that walking long distances in thewild, or camping in a natural area is not a part ofecological research and therefore of ecological educa-tion). Nor is it an unstructured, loose activity ofobserving and collecting specimens in the outsideenvironment. It is an educational activity which pre-supposes careful design and it deploys skills inadvanced levels. It has been shown that students haveto be trained in the use of equipment and techniquesbefore they are confident and competent in makingscientific-type observations in the field (Eberbachand Crowley 2009).Modelling, ie the process of generating representa-tions of ideas, objects, events, processes, or systems,is a major issue for science education in general, andecology education in particular (Gilbert and BoulterCorresponding author: Konstantinos J. Korfiatis. Email: korfiati@ucy.ac.cyJOURNAL OF BIOLOGICAL EDUCATION, VOLUME 46, NUMBER 3, SEPTEMBER 2012 125Journal of Biological Education ISSN 0021-9266 print/ISSN 2157-6009 online  2012 Society of Biologyhttp://www.tandfonline.comhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00219266.2012.715425Downloaded by [Institute of Education] at 07:00 21 August 2012 2000). Models of all kinds are major constitutes ofecological theory (for many they are the theory), andmodelling is a major part of scientific activity inecology. The development of modelling skills is alsoan aim for current education (National ResearchCouncil 2012). This can be achieved from ecologyeducation because (a) it can offer, for younger ages, arange of phenomena (such as food webs or the cycleof water) which children can easily model after theirfirst-hand encounters and observations of ‘real life’rather than vicarious observation from books; (b) arange of role plays and physical activities has beendeveloped by educators, which allows children tomodel ecological processes (eg predator–prey rela-tionships), such as those included in Project WILDand Project WET developed in the USA; (c) ecolog-ical scientific theorising, which is heavily based onmodelling, and can offer appropriate examples forevery age level of learners. Computer simulationsoffer the necessary means for studying more abstractecological models, so that ecological processes whichare difficult to observe in nature, or to study in alaboratory setting (patterns of population growth,seasonal oscillations, flow of energy, etc) can be suc-cessfully discussed and studied in this way.Thus we argue that we should promote the ideaof a ‘progressive-spiralling’ curriculum of ecology,which will include an essential portion of outdoorlearning, especially at the early years of educationand recognising the essential pre-school experiences.In such a concerted approach, outdoor activities willform, among other things, the basis for the develop-ment of models and modelling skills, as well as deepbiological literacy and understanding. Gradually, sim-ulations can be integrated in parts of the curriculum,allowing for larger degrees of theorising and compre-hending of the explanatory patterns and the nature ofecology. In that way, an ecology curriculum willstart in the field but may well end (during upper ele-mentary and high school grades) in the computerlabs.We have not yet referred to the most ‘typical’image of education in current school science: that oflaboratory or classroom inquiry. It has become obvi-ous from the above that laboratory inquiry alone isnot enough for the teaching and understanding ofecology. However it is necessary and vital for boththe comprehension of ecological processes and theinteraction with individual specimens. Cultivation ofa shrimp habitat in a bottle, keeping terraria or aqua-ria in classrooms, or cultivating plants in pots areexemplary settings for ecological experimentation.However, in many cases there is not a perceivableeducational value in conducting ecological experi-ments in a hypothesis-testing, single-lesson manner.A rather ‘project-like’ fashion, with long-stay install-ments, starting with observations and integrating pre-vious knowledge, allowing for multipurpose activitiesand an open agenda, has been reported to be moreproper for ecology’s teaching and learning (Tomkinsand Tunniclife 2001).We suggest that, in such a way, and throughteaching the relevant content at the appropriate leveland with an appropriate methodology, students canreach an understanding of natural systems, and of therole of their parts, their functions and associated con-cepts. The living world, ie the subject of ecology, isa system. In the new K-12 framework for scienceeducation just released by the US National ResearchCouncil, the importance is emphasised of organisingscience-teaching material around crosscutting con-cepts including that of ‘system’, ‘system model’,‘structure and function’, and ‘cause and effect’(National Research Council 2012). Learning aboutsystems demands an integrated, though multifacetedapproach, which will illuminate which are the ele-ments of the system, which is the role of each ele-ment and of the system as a whole, as well as thebehaviour of each part and of the system as a whole.In the case of ecology education, the outdoor part ofa learning curriculum is absolutely necessary fordeveloping a knowing of the ‘parts’ of the system (ieindividual specimens, species, etc), and to start pon-dering their role. Long-term open experimental set-tings, such as terraria, are important for observingand comprehending roles (eg role of decomposers),but models and computer simulations are the mosteffective tools for comprehending the behaviour ofthe system (eg behaviour of an ecosystem after a fire).Another important aspect of teaching ecology isintroducing students to a discussion on the Nature ofScience (NOS) in a somehow different manner thanit is currently. NOS studies often create a picture ofscience that has axiomatic laws; progressing throughcontrolled laboratory experiments and using simplehypothesis-testing exercises for testing predictionsand creating explanations.Without denying the importance of the abovepractices for science and science education, ecologyprovides authentic experiences of issues that are alsocharacteristic of scientific practice, but are not oftentaken into account when teaching NOS.Ecology also provides authentic examples of scien-tific theories that are not consisting of axiomaticlaws, but rather from a set of models and generalstatements (not necessarily having the status of law)that offer a comprehensive explanatory picture ofhow nature works. Thus, ecology curricula couldprovide a more pluralistic approach to teaching andlearning NOS.Therefore, we believe that putting all the abovepieces together, a transformed picture of school sci-ence teaching and learning is created that is notfocused exclusively in classroom lectures, laboratory126 EDITORIAL ______________________________________________________________________________________________________Downloaded by [Institute of Education] at 07:00 21 August 2012 experiments and simple hypothesis testing. In thataspect we think in accordance with many recent callsfor transforming school inquiry. Indeed, it seems thatin recent years there has been a movement towardtransforming school inquiry, criticising the overem-phasis on laboratory-based experimental inquiry, andarguing for more modelling and theoretical and com-munication activities, to which we will add outdooractivities as well (National Research Council 2007,2012; Braund and Reiss 2006; Roth 2008).We suggest that ecology is the ideal candidate forimplementing the proposed transformations in sci-ence curricula, and thus it deserves a larger part inschool curricula. Ecology education is, in our opin-ion, the missing link in educational reform, integrat-ing outdoor education, ICT, and systems thinking,connecting science with everyday experience, anddeveloping scientific skills for very young children,encouraging modelling activities, and promotinggreening of the curriculum.It also provides more flexibility for teachers whowant to engage their students in practices that fall out-side of the typical conceptions of scientific endeavour.As Bower and Roth (2007) argued, we simply cannotmodel all science teaching on a few classroom or labo-ratory classes and continue to believe that we areoffering a science for all. Understanding the practicesof ecologists is an important step to elaborating thepractices found in scientific research that have beenlong ignored in classroom curricula and in developingbiological literacy in citizens.ReferencesBowen, G.M., and W.M. Roth. 2007. The practice of field ecology:Insights for science education. Research in Science Education 37: 171–87.Braund, M., and M. Reiss. 2006. Towards a more authentic science curric-ulum: The contribution of out-of-school learning. International Journal ofScience Education 28: 1373–88.Demetriou, D., K. Korfiatis, and C. Constantinou. 2009. Comprehendingtrophic relations through food web construction. Journal of Biological Edu-cation 43: 53–9.Eberbach, C., and K. Crowley. 2009. From everyday to scientific observa-tion: How children learn to observe the biologist’s world. Review of Edu-cational Research 79: 39–68.Fox-Keller, E. 1983. A feeling for the organism: The life and work of BarbaraMcClintock. San Francisco: WH Freeman.Gilbert, J.K., and C.J. Boulter. 2000. Developing models in science education.Dordrecht. The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.National Research Council. 2007. Taking science to school: Learning and teach-ing science in grades K-8. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.National Research Council. 2012. A framework for K-12 science education:Practices, crosscutting concepts, and core ideas. Washington, DC: TheNational Academies Press.Project WET Staff. 2006. Project WET curriculum and activity guide. Councilfor Environmental Education, www.projectwet.org.Project WILD Staff. 1995. Project WILD curriculum and activity guide. ProjectWILD International Foundation and Council for Environmental Educa-tion, www.projectwild.org.Roth, W.M. 2008. Authentic science for all and the search for the idealbiology curriculum: A personal perspective. Journal of Biological Education43: 3–5.Stamp, N., M. Armstrong, and J. Biger. 2006. Ecological misconceptions,survey III: The challenge of identifying sophisticated understanding. Bul-letin of the Ecological Society of America 87: 168–75.Tomkins, S.P., and S.D. Tunnicliffe. 2001. Looking for ideas: Observation,interpretation and hypothesis-making by 12-year-old pupils undertakingscience investigations. 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Korfiatis, KJ

Tunnicliffe, SD

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The Living World in the curriculum: ecology, an essential part of biology learning

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