Seeing the trees: what urban middle school students notice about the street trees that surround them

Wyner, Yael; Doherty, Jennifer H.

doi:10.1080/00219266.2019.1667407

Cited by 7 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…However, results from the students' plant recognition tests showed that the students' levels of recognizing plants were low in general. This finding is in line with those reported by research (Bebbington, 2005;Civelek, 2012;Haymana Ulucanlı, 2009;Fančovičová & Prokop, 2011a;Kaasinen, 2019;Lückmann & Menzel, 2014;Mercan & Köseoğlu, 2019;Yüce & Doğru, 2018;Wyner & Doherty 2019) reveals that the level of participants' plant recognition is low. Considering the characteristics of the plants that are highly recognized by the students in the present research, it is seen that these plants have either flowers used as ornamental plants or edible fruits.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

The Predictors of Ninth Grade Students' Attitudes Towards Plants

Selvi

İslam²

2021

JBSE

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As plants are vital to the survival of the planet, developing positive attitude towards them is important for protection of plants, biodiversity, and the environment. The aim of this research was to determine the predictors of ninth grade students’ attitude towards plants. In the study, a descriptive correlational design was used. The data were collected from 773 upper-secondary students selected through stratified-purposive sampling. The “Plant Recognition Test” and “Plant Attitude Scale” were used as data collection tools. Multiple regression analysis was performed to determine the way different variables predicted attitude towards plants. The results of research indicated that the linear relationship between predictive variables and attitude towards plants explained 14% of the total variance in attitude towards plants at a significant level. Among the variables, gender, time spent in a garden, involvement in indoor or outdoor cultivation, experience with picking flowers, fruits, and/or vegetables, and plant recognition level had significant contributions to predicting variance in attitude towards plants, and the recognition of plants was determined to be the most important predictor relative to all the other variables. Keywords: descriptive correlational design, plant recognition, secondary education

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

The Predictors of Ninth Grade Students' Attitudes Towards Plants

Selvi

İslam²

2021

JBSE

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“…Although the curriculum increased students' abilities to notice important features for identification like leaf shape, leaf arrangement, and fruits (Wyner & Doherty, 2017, 2019), these skills were not enough to give students a sense of agency over their learning because students were not yet expert observers and were still easily distracted by uninformative tree features like tree size and shape that hindered their ability to identify trees (Wyner & Doherty, 2019). For many students, the curriculum improved their ability to identify common street trees and the trees in front of their school (Wyner & Doherty, 2017, 2019), but these skills might not have been as solid as the paper drawings and free‐list assessments indicated (Wyner & Doherty, 2017). And more importantly, they may not have learned enough to successfully identify the many different species of trees that they would encounter daily.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As such, we developed a curriculum focused on learning how to name and group trees, how trees change over time, and the role of common ancestry in relatedness, with the aim of changing student attitudes towards naming and noticing the trees around them. Except for student attitudes, we have already reported on student understanding of these learning goals (Wyner & Doherty, 2017, 2019). This paper will explain what we uncovered about student attitudes towards trees.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As such, we also wanted to understand whether student understanding correlated with student attitudes towards knowing a tree's name. To calculate student understanding at each time point, we added the scores students received on each item reported in Wyner and Doherty (2017, 2019) to create an understanding variable. We then used generalized linear models to investigate if caring about tree names at the beginning of the year (Fall Pre) was related to higher student understanding later in the year (Fall Post or Spring Post, controlling for student understanding in Fall Pre).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Specifically, this paper aims to understand the reasons students would care or would not care about knowing a tree's name. We focused on this ability because we found that it was associated with the ability to scientifically observe trees (Wyner & Doherty, 2017, 2019). We also wanted to understand more deeply student dispositions towards naming because their dispositions may explain the motivations that drive or block student interest in learning (Deci et al, 1999; Deci & Ryan, 1985, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Caring to know a name: An examination of New York City student attitudes towards knowing a tree's name

Wyner

Doherty

2021

Plants People Planet

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Societal Impact Statement As the world becomes more urbanized, people place less value on knowing the biodiversity that surrounds them. Engagement with trees is hindered by an additional barrier, plant blindness, the tendency of people to ignore plants entirely. To help educators make tree diversity learning meaningful to students, this research aims to understand whether observing trees improves student dispositions towards knowing and observing trees, whether positive dispositions improve student learning about trees, and the reasons why urban middle school students care or do not care to know tree names. Summary To improve student engagement with local plant diversity, we developed a curriculum for New York City (NYC) students (Grades 6–8, ages 11–14) to help them scientifically observe the trees they pass daily. This study reports results from preassessments/postassessments that explore students' dispositions towards knowing and observing trees and how these dispositions relate to learning. Participants included 150 intervention and 100 comparison students. In addition, 19 students were interviewed at three different time points. Findings indicate that a tree observation and identification curriculum positively influenced students' dispositions towards knowing and observing trees, but 6 months after implementation, student interest had returned near to where it had begun. In addition, socioeconomic status had little impact on students' dispositions, and no relationship was found between dispositions and learning. Findings also show that as a baseline, about 25% of students care about knowing a tree's name. We grouped the reasons students provided into 17 categories, 10 for caring and 7 for not caring. The most frequently stated categories for caring were liking to know, knowing a name helps me know more, and knowing a tree's name helps me know my surroundings. The most stated categories for not caring were that knowing a tree's name is unimportant for my day‐to‐day life and all trees look the same. Student reasons for caring and not caring are a compelling guide to the difficult task of making trees meaningful for students, an important step for empowering students to learn more about the trees that surround them.

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Preservice science teachers’ conceptions of trees, forests and deforestation

Öztürk-Akar

2023

Journal of Biological Education

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Seeing the trees: what urban middle school students notice about the street trees that surround them

Cited by 7 publications

References 40 publications

The Predictors of Ninth Grade Students' Attitudes Towards Plants

The Predictors of Ninth Grade Students' Attitudes Towards Plants

Caring to know a name: An examination of New York City student attitudes towards knowing a tree's name

Preservice science teachers’ conceptions of trees, forests and deforestation

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