Abstract:

Valuing and decision making competences in the context of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) plays an important role in the national educational standards (NBS) of biology. The students (of High-Schools) should be prepared to recognise and evaluate biological facts and justify their own or others‘ opinions. Consequently, students should be capable of developing an objective opinion considering individual and social negotiable values. This requires multi-perspective thinking in regard to the ESD dimensions: ecology, economy and social issues and is an essential part of modern biology lessons in German schools (KMK, 2005). However, teachers often experience diagnosing and promoting these competences as a challenge. In order to address this problem, a Community of Practice (CoP) was established, consisting of seven teachers from the cooperating Albert-Einstein-Oberschule in Bremen and science educators from the University of Bremen. A six-hours lesson was developed in the context of ESD on the topic of peatland protection and tested and optimised in three cycles from 2016 to 2020. A total of 181 students (95 ♀ | 86 ♂, age: 13 - 16) participated in the study.

The core questions of research (RQ) is about:
(RQ.DBR): How must a lesson be designed to comply with the conditions of the cooperating school and address the school-specific requirements?
In addition, cycle-specific questions are defined:
(RQ.Cycle.1): Which aspects of the design prototype shows the most significant potential for development (practical/theoretical)?
(RQ.Cycle.2): Which criteria have to be modified to improve the selected methods for promotion and diagnosis of the decision making competences (cf. material-based writing/competence grid)?
(RQ.Cycle.3): How suitable ist the modified teaching method (material-based writing) to promote the decision making competences? How suitable is the developed competence grid (PARS model) for diagnosing the decision making competences?

The research is based on the research paradigm of design-based research (DBR) after McKenney & Reeves (2012). At theoretical level a model (PARS-model) for the diagnosis of students´valueining and decision making competences in the context of ESD is developed. To promote the decision making competences, the method of material based writing is used and adapted for biology lessons. The data set consists of interviews with seven teachers, and students, observations and process logs, post-questionnaires and the work results from all participating students (uncluding written statements of the students evaluating the topic „peatland protection“). The qualitative data are analysed using two special forms of qualitative content analysis (structuring- and scalable-structuring content analysis) after (Mayring P. , 2015).
For future projects the PARS-model hould be further improved using additional empirical studies with a higher number of test persons and different school types. Overall, the exchange within a community of practice, including science educators, to create an teaching lesson that fulfils the school-specific requirements of an integrated comprehensive school was a success.

Acknowledgements:
The project has received funding from the European Union´s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the grant agreement number 872146 (RESBIOS).

Keywords:

Education for sustainable development, biology education, valuing and decision making.