Abstract:

Recent results of international research report the decreasing interest of young generation in plant biology together with decreasing understanding of plant physiological processes in general, This seems to be alarming for the future of human society, because of significant role which plants are playing in human environment. The role of plants is highlighted in recent time under the circumstances of global climate changes. Plant metabolism is in tight connection to one of the most serious and deciding environmental phenomenon - the water. The physiological processes of the vegetation influence strongly the total water budget on the Earth and vice versa. From this reason it is crucial for the future of human society to educate the young generation properly to understand well the plant water metabolism. From this reason the educators are looking for didactic methods attracting the young generation to plant biology and simultaneously increasing student’s achievement in this field. According to the foreign experience, inquiry learning seems to be one of the possibilities. In Czech Republic inquiry approach has been implemented into the science education just during several last years.

In this contribution the results of the implementation of the inquiry based teaching program focused on plant water metabolism and findings of the research aimed to the influence of this teaching program on students’ achievement are presented.

The high school students of the second grade were taught by using teaching program constructed according to the rules of guided inquiry learning. The design of the teaching program is described as well. An impact of this teaching program on the students’ knowledge of plant water metabolism was tested via the didactic test. To enable the assessment of students’ achievement from different points of view and to obtain a complex information, several types of questions were used: multiple-choice questions, open form questions and also questions requiring answers including problem solving skills. The results of the focus group were compared to the results of the control group taught by classical frontal teaching. Totally 90 students were tested.

According to the results of our research, the guided inquiry approach used in teaching plant water metabolism increased significantly students’ achievement. Substantial improvement of focus group as compared to the control group was detected in particular in the open questions and the problem solving questions, i.e. questions, requiring deeper insight into the topic and formulation of accurate explanations. Also in questions requiring responses based on the memorization strategies ( multiple-choice questions) the students taught by guided inquiry approach reached slightly better results as the students taught by frontal teaching, but the differences were not so significant as in open form questions.

Based on these findings, we concluded, that guided inquiry approach used in teaching program aimed to the plant water metabolism is suitable for the improvement of students’ achievement and enhances high school students understanding of the role of plants in human environment.

Keywords:

Guided inquiry, plant biology, water metabolism.