Abstract:

A government white paper in 2010 [1] re-established school subject knowledge bases as the foundation for curriculum design in English schools, and written end-tests as the only assessment tool for public examinations. Course work, practical tests and modular tests could no longer contribute to external qualifications aimed at 16-year-olds and 19-year-olds.

The examination specifications for science subjects specify that learners experience a number of required practicals to develop their experimental research skills [2] [3]. However, those skills are only tested on the final written examination, through questions referring to the required practicals [2] [3]. Ecology concepts are important components of English examination board biology specifications [2] [3], but the position of fieldwork has weakened despite having many educational advantages [4].

The fieldwork needed has been reduced to estimating the population size of a common species in a habitat [2] for the General Certificate of Education (GCSE) and investigating the effect of a named environmental factor on the distribution of a given species for General Certificate of Education (GCE) A-Level [3]. This is a minimum requirement, and it can be argued that a critical approach to these activities will lead to discussion of a wide range of field work sampling and measurement techniques.

This paper discusses the ecology subject knowledge and required practicals in the AQA examination specifications [2] [3] and learning, teaching and assessment (LTA) activities developed after centre and teacher led field work at Field Studies Council field centres [5]. These have been adapted in order to utilise sand dune and saltmarsh ecosystems local to teachers in Liverpool and Merseyside schools. It also describes pre-service science teachers’ introduction to these ecosystems during their initial teacher education programme at a Higher Education (HE) qualified teacher status (QTS) provider.

Keywords:

Ecology, biology, science, required practicals, examination, investigation skills, teacher subject knowledge, fieldwork, sampling, estimating populations.