USING A FIELD TRIP TO A WETLAND AS A GUIDE FOR CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDING IN ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION – A CASE STUDY OF A PRE-SERVICE TEACHER’S RESEARCH

Abstract

This paper describes a pre-service chemistry teacher in her senior year at the university, who attended an environmental education (EE) course, in which within a project assignment, she studied her peers’ and other college students' conceptions of the swamps in Israel. In her study she discovered that the students held naive conceptions about the swamps as filthyhazardous places that must be drained for improving the public health. A visit to the swamp, which included observations and investigation of its water quality, caused a conceptual change that allowed the students to understand the ecosystem better and to re-assess their pre-conceptions. The pre-service teacher, who was at the focus of this study challenged her own and her colleagues conceptions and used the conceptual change as a lever for her own professional growth as an environmental educator. Her project provides a better insight on pre-service environmental education experiences. The changes that the prospective teacher identified are discussed in the context of constructivist learning and teaching in EE, suggesting that pre-service training in EE must include actual outdoors learning experiences, which allow students to challenge previous knowledge and practice effective teaching methods. [Chem. Educ. Res. Pract.: 2004, 5, 127-142]