<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p> Environmental education in the 21<sup>st</sup> century requires well-instructed teachers with teaching and communication abilities. This paper presents an educational experience developed in several biology and environmental teacher training courses and focused on the treatment of environmental education as a transversal educational topic. For that aim, text analysis techniques, concept mapping and informatics tools have been used to represent individual and collaborative knowledge about environmental topics. 69 students participated in the research. Data about the educational activities developed by the participants have been collected. Furthermore, students have expressed their opinions on the formative process by means of an opinion survey. The outcomes of this study reveal that future teachers and environmental educators consider that concept mapping is a valuable tool to represent their knowledge about environmental education, to encourage reflexive and collaborative learning, to improve teaching communicative abilities and to use effectively ICT in the classroom.</p></abstract>

Environmental education in the 21st century requires well-instructed teachers with teaching and communication abilities. This paper presents an educational experience developed in several biology and environmental teacher training courses and focused on the treatment of environmental education as a transversal educational topic. For that aim, text analysis techniques, concept mapping and informatics tools have been used to represent individual and collaborative knowledge about environmental topics. 69 students participated in the research. Data about the educational activities developed by the participants have been collected. Furthermore, students have expressed their opinions on the formative process by means of an opinion survey. The outcomes of this study reveal that future teachers and environmental educators consider that concept mapping is a valuable tool to represent their knowledge about environmental education, to encourage reflexive and collaborative learning, to improve teaching communicative abilities and to use effectively ICT in the classroom.

Educative Experience of the Use of Concept Mapping in Science and Environmental Teacher Training Programmes

Department of Applied Physics, Albert Einstein Building, University of Cordoba, 14071 Córdoba, Spain

Journal of Teacher Education for Sustainability

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Environmental education in the 21st century requires well-instructed teachers with teaching and communication abilities. This paper presents an educational...

Educative Experience of the Use of Concept Mapping in Science and Environmental Teacher Training Programmes

Published Online: Sep 12, 2014

Page range: 102 - 116

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jtes-2014-0006

Keywords
teacher training, environmental education, concept mapping, collaborative work, CmapTools

© by Alfonso Pontes-Pedrajas

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Educative Experience of the Use of Concept Mapping in Science and Environmental Teacher Training Programmes

Published Online: Sep 12, 2014

Page range: 102 - 116

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jtes-2014-0006

Keywordsteacher training, environmental education, concept mapping, collaborative work, CmapTools

© by Alfonso Pontes-Pedrajas

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
teacher training, environmental education, concept mapping, collaborative work, CmapTools