The Wadden Sea as a National Park and UNESCO World Heritage Site: Students’ Word Associations with These Two Conservation Designations

Abstract

The Wadden Sea ecosystem is unique in many respects from a biological perspective. This is one reason why it is protected by national parks in Germany and by its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In biology didactics, there are only a few studies that focus on the Wadden Sea. This work investigates students’ word associations with the two stimulus words “national park” and “UNESCO World Heritage Site”. The survey was conducted among students living directly at the Wadden Sea and among students from the inland. The analysis of the identified associations (n = 8345) was carried out within the framework of a quantitative content analysis to be able to present and discuss the results on a group level. A statistically significant difference was found between the two groups. Overall, results showed that the students made subject-related associations as well as a large number of associations to both stimulus words that could be judged as non-subject-related. In some cases, a connection with the region of residence could be found, but this was not generally the case. Even students’ immediate residential proximity to the Wadden Sea is no guarantee that they have knowledge of the two considered protection terms.

Conceptions of prospective biology teachers about the Wadden Sea ecosystem

“…In addition, references are made to the subject-area-related analyses in order to consider the second question in detail. Within the discussion, a reference is made to the presented association studies ( Schmäing and Grotjohann 2021a ; 2021b ), which are already available for the selected terms and which have been conducted with secondary school students (question 3). In the context of this process, it is not the intention of this study to discuss every single category from the mind maps, but rather the focus is on selected categories and on significant results.…”

“…In order to ensure comparability of the data obtained in this study with those from the studies on the conceptions of learners from secondary schools, the same methodological approach was chosen. Detailed justifications supported by additional literature can be found in the explanations of the two studies ( Schmäing and Grotjohann, 2021a ; 2021b ). Following these descriptions, central aspects are presented to illustrate the design of this study.…”

“…This prerequisite is fulfilled in this section, and the five terms selected as stimulus words are each briefly considered from a subject-area-related perspective. The explanations of the terms national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site are based on those of Schmäing and Grotjohann (2021b) . Finally, explanations are provided for the experts' selection of each term as a stimulus word.…”

“…Among other things, differences regarding the surveyed secondary school students' general level of awareness of the Wadden Sea were identified with regard to their place of residence, and the presence of non-subject-related conceptions was highlighted ( Schmäing and Grotjohann, 2021a ). Furthermore, these students were found to have a very low level of awareness regarding the two protection designations of the Wadden Sea UNESCO World Heritage Site and National Park ( Schmäing and Grotjohann, 2021b ). As was done in the two studies mentioned, a survey was conducted among prospective biology teachers as a means of unlocking learners' perspectives.…”

The Potential and Limitations of the Wadden Sea in University, School, and Out-Of-School Contexts From the Perspective of Biology Education

“…Despite this relevance, the Wadden Sea has hardly been considered in didactics biology research (for detailed descriptions of the state of research, see Schmäing & Grotjohann, 2021a, 2021b. The present study contributes to research on incorporating the Wadden Sea in biology education.…”