Aspects of Secondary Students’ Understanding of Plant Nutrition

The report from the Children’s Learning in Science Project (CLIS) gives an account of a number of aspects of students’ understanding of plant nutrition including:
*To what extent do students understand that plants carry out autotrophic nutrition and not heterotrophic nutrition as do animals?
*To what extent do students understand the role of light, chlorophyll and raw materials in photosynthesis?
*How do students conceptualise the relationship between food energy and the maintenance of plant metabolism?

Contents of the summary report
*Introduction
*How were students’ understandings investigated?
*What kinds of questions were used?
*What were the main findings of the interview study?
*Summary of findings
*Some implications for teaching and learning
*What do these findings suggest for science teaching?
*Suggestions for teaching and learning
*Implications for curriculum planning
*A summary of key ideas on plant nutrition that students may hold

Contents of the full report
Section 1: The scope of the report
Section 2: Plant nutrition in secondary science courses
Section 3: Review of literature on children’s understandings of plant nutrition
Section 4: Analysis of written responses to questions
Section 5: Comparisons between groups of students
Section 6: Interviews with students about aspects of plant nutrition
Section 7: Summary of findings
Section 8: Implications