Exploring the Preservice Teachers’ Work to Label the Plants in the Faculty Garden

This descriptive qualitative case study aims to find out the pre-service science teachers (PST)’ confidence about instructional practice in outdoor setting, their knowledge about the plants and it explores the two research questions: To what extent do the preservice science teachers have confidence to teach in the outdoor settings? (1) and What are the preservice teachers’ knowledge about the plants that they see on a daily basis? (2). To do this, it was reported the entire activity of two voluntary pre-service science teachers (PST)’ work to label the plants at the faculty garden. The data collection encompassed rounds of semi-structured interviews, observations and a portfolio was prepared. The protocol addressed preparation for the connection to everyday life, their General Biology Course and for their collaboration. Preservice science teachers labelled in total 124 plants from 14 species by focusing on mostly the trees. They reported that their main challenge is to label the family Pinaceae, although they have seen these plants almost daily for over two years. They reported that this practice-based instructional work at the faculty garden enhances their knowledge and confidence to teach in the outdoor settings. Keywords: biology education, outdoor learning environments, out-of-school teacher education, pre-service teacher education, science education