Teaching biodiversity from a taxonomical lens: using inquiry and the 5E learning model

Biodiversity is an emerging concept being taught in high school biology classrooms when teaching lessons on conservation, human impacts, and hierarchy. However, teaching biodiversity through these lenses does not allow students to receive content that explains what biodiversity is and the variety of life on Earth. The Indiana Department of Education outlines twenty-four standards to be taught in a secondary biology classroom, with only two of these indirectly addressing biodiversity. The goal of this study was to determine if adding improved taxonomical content into curriculum through two teaching models will increase student knowledge on biodiversity and student interest in the subject. To address this goal, one high school biology class received an enrichment program comprised of a BSCS 5E instructional unit and a field experience to a local zoo. A second class received only the field experience, and the third class did not receive any parts of this enrichment program. The class that received the enrichment program showed significantly higher improvement scores on a biodiversity pre/post-test and had a significant increase in biology interest levels after the study compared to the other two groups. The results of this study demonstrate that the re-introduction of taxonomy into the curriculum is beneficial to student knowledge and interest, and it also models field experiences as elaboration tools for curriculum.