Gregor Torkar

Gregor Torkar
University of Ljubljana · Faculty of Education

PhD

About

115
Publications
73,506
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Introduction
Gregor Torkar, full professor for biology education at the University of Ljubljana Faculty of Education. Researcher working mainly in the field of biology and environmental education. His current research interests are ecology, biodiversity and evolutionary education, sustainability, environmental attitudes and behaviour, outdoor education, m-learning, eye-tracking technology in science teaching and learning, and nature conservation.

Publications

Publications (115)
Article
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En aquest article es presenta una motxilla preparada i dissenyada en el context del projecte Multipliers. L’objectiu d’aquesta motxilla és promoure l’interès i la observació de la natura en famílies amb infants a l’etapa d’infantil i primària. La motxilla està formada per diverses eines i materials i acompanyada de petites propostes que poden fer d...
Article
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The first recent finding of the European Earthborer Beetle (Bolbelasmus unicornis) in Slovenia. The female was accidentally found dead in the period 2015-2023 in the vicinity of Radovljica (NW Slovenia) and stored in the educational collection of the Pedagogical Faculty of the University of Ljubljana. The finding opens up the need for systematic re...
Article
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Background Evolution is a unifying theme in biology and its understanding is essential to address sustainability problems. However, many people across the world do not understand evolution. Textbooks are among the most widely used educational resources and the way they depict evolution may greatly impact students’ scientific literacy in evolution....
Article
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Z raziskavo smo želeli pridobiti podrobnejši vpogled v znanstveno pismenost osnovnošolcev iz tretjega vzgojno-izobraževalnega obdobja v Sloveniji. V kvantitativni raziskavi smo iz desetih naključno izbranih šol vključili po en oddelek učencev posameznega razreda iz tega obdobja. V raziskavo je bilo vključenih 513 učencev, ki so izpolnjevali anonimn...
Article
The contribution of school curricula to public understanding and acceptance of evolution is still mostly unknown, due to the scarcity of studies that compare the learning goals present in different curricula. To overcome this lack of data we analysed 19 school curricula (18 European and one from Israel) to study the differences regarding the inclus...
Article
The contribution of school curricula to public understanding and acceptance of evolution is still mostly unknown, due to the scarcity of studies that compare the learning goals present in different curricula. To overcome this lack of data we analysed 19 school curricula (18 European and one from Israel) to study the differences regarding the inclus...
Chapter
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Nature play is defined as freely chosen, unstructured interactions with and in nature. The aim of this study was to find out how nature play provides preschool children with play episodes where they experienced biological phenomena and living organisms. 21 four-to-six-year-old children from a preschool in Slovenia participated in the study. They we...
Article
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The iNaturalist application has been gaining traction in both biodiversity research and education. Increasingly more research is being carried out, looking into using the iNaturalist application in biology education, to promote biodiversity and educate students about this topic. We used the PRISMA systematic literature review method to examine rese...
Article
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Introduction This research aims to explore the integration of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) within teacher education programs, focusing on the Faculty of Education at Okayama University, Japan and the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Methods We employed a qualitative content analysis of the syllabi (n = 2,079 from Okayama University; n =...
Article
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Peptides released on frogs’ skin in a stress situation represent their only weapon against micro-organisms and predators. Every species and even population of frog possesses its own peptidome being appropriate for their habitat. Skin peptides are considered potential pharmaceuticals, while the whole peptidome may be treated as a taxonomic character...
Article
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Fostering pro-environmental behavior to achieve a sustainable society is one goal of Education for Sustainable Development worldwide. Connectedness with nature positively correlates with pro-environmental behavior and therefore needs to be studied in detail. In this mixed-method study, applying the “Inclusion of Nature in Self” (INS)-scale, we inve...
Preprint
Fostering pro-environmental behavior to achieve a sustainable society is one of the goals of Education for Sustainable Development worldwide. Connectedness with nature is known to positively correlate with pro-environmental behavior and therefore needs to be studied in more detail. In this mixed-method study, applying the "Inclusion of Nature in Se...
Article
Skin secretion of amphibians often represents the only weapon of these species against pathogens and predators. Peptides constitute the major portion of active molecules of that weapon and may be treated as potential pharmaceuticals for future generations. The first step of their efficient use involves establishing of their primary structure, i.e.,...
Article
The foraging of Great Cormorants Phalacrocorax carbo in Alpine rivers is a relatively recent phenomenon. Wintering populations in Slovenia increased in the 1980s. In the 1990s, the increase affected the upper sections of rivers where the habitats of Grayling Thymallus thymallus and trout Salmo and Oncorhynchus spp. are located. The upper section of...
Article
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Understanding the human body as a system is challenging for students due to its complexity. This study examines how lower secondary school students understand the circulatory system, using the structure-behavior-function (SBF) framework for conceptual representation. It evaluates the progress of students' understanding after interventions with two...
Chapter
This chapter presents an exploratory study of a learning framework for understanding complex systems. Because teachers play an important role in educating students about climate change, it is critical that they develop comprehensive knowledge about this issue. Three groups of pre-service teachers from Cyprus and Slovenia participated. Based on the...
Article
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The consumer behaviour of Slovenian pre-service teachers for the December holidays and their personal views about sustainable consumption were studied. A total of 130 students of the University of Ljubljana’s Faculty of Education took part in the study. The sample consisted of 11 male and 116 female students, while 3 students did not report their g...
Article
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Evolution is a key concept of biology, fundamental to understand the world and address important societal problems, but research studies show that it is still not widely understood and accepted. Several factors are known to influence evolution acceptance and understanding, but little information is available regarding the impacts of the curriculum...
Article
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Background Investigations of evolution knowledge and acceptance and their relation are central to evolution education research. Ambiguous results in this field of study demonstrate a variety of measuring issues, for instance differently theorized constructs, or a lack of standardized methods, especially for cross-country comparisons. In particular,...
Article
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This article focuses on the importance of familiarity with the species diversity of ecosystems for proper use of the food chain concept. We were interested in whether university students in preschool and primary school education programmes, who will teach children about ecological concepts such as fo o d chains and food webs, can correctly name spe...
Article
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Science education research has been increasingly concerned with students’ and teachers’ conceptions of central scientific concepts over the past decades. However, science teaching today should not only convey knowledge but also values and science practices in order to empower students to become responsible citizens in a world that is facing ecologi...
Article
Skin secretion represents the only means of defense for the majority of frog species. That phenomenon is based on the fact that the main components of the secretion are peptides demonstrating greatly varying types of bioactivity. They fulfill regulatory functions, fight microorganisms and may be even helpful against predators. These peptides are co...
Chapter
Science curricula that integrate more research and research like experiences are getting internationally increased support from preschool to university level (e.g., Bybee, 2011; NAAEE, 2019; NRC, 2012; OECD, 2018). The National Research Council (NRC, 2012) is emphasizing process skills, i.e., asking questions, defining problems, conducting investig...
Article
p style="text-align: justify;">Teaching about biodiversity and its conservation could be an effective way to teach the importance of different species and human dependence on ecological support systems. This study compares the effectiveness of a digital and a paper-based dichotomous identification key for teaching pre-service teachers about plant s...
Article
Childhood experiences with nature are decisive for children’s wellbeing. The need for outdoor activities has been duly recognized in the preschool curriculum in Slovenia. However, there are some obstacles to this approach—specifically, tick-borne diseases. This study examines the views and experiences of Slovenian preschool teachers (n = 158) with...
Article
Attitudes towards animals present an important foundation for nature conservation activity. This study investigates the attitude of five- to six-year-old children towards some unpopular animals. We used three types of live animals: earthworms, mealworm beetles, and a toad. In the initial tests, during which the children had the opportunity to obser...
Technical Report
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The lack of standardised assessment of evolutionary knowledge and acceptance of evolution across Europe makes comparisons between studies difficult. The Evolution Education Questionnaire on Acceptance and Knowledge (EEQ) was constructed to measure attitudes and understanding across Europe and beyond. We aimed to compile a brief instrument to allow...
Article
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Learning the basics of human anatomy is challenging for schoolchildren due to its three-dimensional nature and complexity as a system. This study created educational materials for learning about and teaching the human circulatory system based on augmented reality (AR) technology and a structure–behavior–function (SBF) model, including 2D/3D animati...
Article
Acquiring observational competences is an important task in early science education. It helps children to make a transition from seeing to observing and developing scientific process skills and science concepts. Outdoor education is seen by many researchers as optimal way for learning about life sciences, therefore ongoing loss of human interaction...
Article
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Sustainable development (SD) is one of the global and central aims of today's politics. As stated in Agenda 21, education must play an essential role in achieving a sustainable society. The present research is focused on Slovenian and Austrian biology teacher students' understanding of SD and education for sustainable development (ESD). The researc...
Article
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The goal of the present research was to assess the environmental worldviews and concerns of students from the fourth to the seventh grade in Slovenia. The New Ecological Paradigm Scale for Children was translated and validated for use with Slovenian primary school students (N = 310). The students were also asked about their environmental concerns (...
Article
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Does the act of caring for a dog have a substantial connection to the environmental values and behaviours of children? The scientific current literature contains little empirical research regarding the effect of pet ownership on environmental attitudes and behaviours in children. The Two Factor Model of Environmental Values (2-MEV) scale and the Ge...
Article
Attitudes, values and concerns are frequently measured to monitor individual preferences of adolescents. As there is still some discussion about how to monitor those variables with respect to empirical instruments, directions of items or length of instruments, we applied two established scales (2 Major Environmental Value Model [2-MEV] and Environm...
Conference Paper
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Sustainable development (SD) is one of the global and central aims of today’s politics. As stated in Agenda 21, education has to play an essential role in achieving a sustainable society. The present research focused on Slovenian and Austrian biology teacher students’ understanding about SD and education for sustainable development (ESD), and on th...
Article
The main study objective was to determine how primary and lower secondary school students’ valuations and perceptions of ecosystem services as provisioning (produces timber, food, and fuel), regulating (regulates the climate, protects against natural hazards, produces clean water, produces soil, produces clean air), cultural (a place for recreation...
Article
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The present research explores benefits of using young students’ drawings in combination with written responses for gathering information about science concepts. Younger students are still very limited in their verbal expression and less biologically literate than older students. The aim was to determine primary school students’ conceptions about ow...
Article
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The article presents an analytical overview of the science and technology curriculum from the viewpoint of the inclusive approach adopted toward gifted education in Slovenian basic education. The main research question concerns how the current curriculum fits the learning needs of gifted students. For the purposes of the study, 16 compulsory and el...
Article
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In order to understand water balance in plants, students must understand the relation between external representations at the macroscopic, microscopic, and submicroscopic levels. This study investigated how Slovenian students (N = 79) at the primary, secondary, and undergraduate tertiary levels understand water balance in plants. The science proble...
Article
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Many children learn about and experience animals in the everyday environment where they live and attend school. One way to obtain information about children’s understanding of concepts or phenomena is by using their drawings in combination with written responses or interviews. This study assesses how much Slovenian students 10–15 years old (in sixt...
Article
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Our scientific interests involve de novo sequencing of non-tryptic natural amphibian skin peptides including those with intramolecular S–S bond by means of exclusively mass spectrometry. Reliable discrimination of the isomeric leucine/isoleucine residues during peptide sequencing by means of mass spectrometry represents a bottleneck in the workflow...
Article
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V članku opredeljujemo pomen herbarija v izobraževanju učiteljev razrednega pouka za dvig interesa za rastline in znanja o rastlinah med osnovnošolci. Slovenske študente, bodoče učitelje razrednega pouka, smo usposabljali v izdelovanju herbarija. V raziskavi je sodelovalo 86 študentov. Študenti so po izdelavi herbarijev izpolnili anketni vprašalnik...
Chapter
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Primary teachers and teachers-specialists in teaching subjects from natural sciences' areas involved in the TEALEAF project 2 developed not only knowledge about biodiversity and ecology but also they developed their digital competence. Through the project selected teachers from Czech Republic, France, Ireland, Slovenia and Spain in the first phase...
Article
p style="text-align: justify;">Early childhood is a crucial period for the physical and cognitive development of children. A child's exposure to nature is proven to be beneficial in this period of human life. The aim of the present research was to investigate children’s play and physical activity on a traditional playground and on a forest (natural...
Article
Full-text available
The main aim of our research was to determine whether the teacher is one of the factors influencing students’ perception of biology as a school subject. The study also aimed to identify the influence of certain other factors in this regard, specifically: students’ gender and place of residence, the number of biology teachers who have taught the stu...
Article
Full-text available
Early childhood is a crucial period for the physical and cognitive development of children. A child's exposure to nature is proven to be beneficial in this period of human life. The aim of the present research was to investigate children’s play and physical activity on a traditional playground and on a forest (natural) playground. Twenty-five obse...
Article
Full-text available
In this paper we identify teachers' value-laden statements about sustainable development and climate change that are (not) acceptable for pre-service students of preschool education (non-science majors) and student teachers of biology and chemistry (science majors) in their final year of university studies at the Faculty of Education University of...
Research
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The SUSTAIN Energy handbook is a handbook for teachers. It includes a collection of IBSE activities and guidelines to help teachers support children in learning about Energy, Energy sources and saving Energy. Throughout the Energy handbook, principles of IBSE and ESD have been linked, supporting primary school teachers in implementing an exciting a...
Article
Full-text available
The main aim of our research was to determine whether the teacher is one of the factors influencing students’ perception of biology as a school subject. The study also aimed to identify the influence of certain other factors in this regard, specifically: students’ gender and place of residence, the number of biology teachers who have taught the stu...
Chapter
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This article describes the concept of biodiversity in the school context and emphasizes what students can learn about biodiversity concepts using digital technologies. Teaching about biodiversity and its conservation could be an effective means of communicating the significance of various species and ecosystems and people’s dependence on ecological...
Article
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Forest is connected with numerous roles and functions, which can vary through time and place, thereby bearing the important information on the individual and social perception and attitudes toward forest. We have analysed Valvasor%s identification of forest roles and functions through content analysis of the Glory of the Duchy of Carniola. Eleven o...
Article
LC-MS/MS was applied to establish the composition of the skin peptidome of a Slovenian green frog belonging to the Pelophylax esculentus complex. As this was similar to the peptidome of the Moscow population of Pelophylax ridibundus, it allowed us to identify the Slovenian frog from the Pelophylax esculentus complex as Pelophylax ridibundus. The se...
Article
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When learning chemistry, students encounter various visualizations introducing scientific concepts and processes unobservable to the naked eye. It is often assumed that these visualizations support students' understanding and enable them to solve problems more efficiently. The research presented here investigates students' use of an explanatory key...
Article
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Early childhood is a period of life in which lifelong attitudes, values and patterns of behaviour regarding nature are shaped. Environmental education is becoming a growing area of interest in early childhood education. The aim of the research study was to identify children’s understanding of why and how their pro-environmental behaviours influence...
Article
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This study examined young Slovenian learners’ knowledge about animal diversity on different continents, which is important information conveyed during their education about different biomes on the Earth and about preservation of biodiversity. Altogether, 198 young learners 5 to 12 years old were interviewed via a questionnaire. They were asked to n...
Article
Rationale: Mass spectrometry has shown itself to be the most efficient tool for the sequencing of peptides. However, de novo sequencing of novel natural peptides is significantly more challenging in comparison with the same procedure applied for the tryptic peptides. To reach the goal in this case it is essential to select the most efficient metho...
Article
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Alarming declines in biodiversity have encouraged scientists to begin promoting the idea of the services ecosystems offer to humans in order to gain support for conservation. The concept of ecosystem services is designed to communicate societal dependence on various natural ecosystems. Schools play an important role in educating students to be acti...
Article
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Climate development models predict alterations that will critically influence plant metabolism in southern and central Europe. Although the molecular players involved in the response to climatic stress factors have been well described in crops, little information is available for forest tree species. Consequently, the identification of molecular bi...
Article
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Studying attitudes toward fauna such as snakes is essential in wildlife management. The main objective of this study was to investigate the impact that fear of snakes has on Slovenian pre-service teachers’ attitudes towards conservation and the likelihood of incorporating animals into developing the future science curriculum. The effect of direct e...
Article
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Mercury mining in Idrija has profoundly changed environmental conditions in the Idrijca River basin. Impacts of mining-related activities on the river system and its ichthyofauna from circa 1490 until World War I were analysed. Literature and archival sources were both studied. Heavy water pollution with mercury and its components, the floating of...
Technical Report
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The Power of Media Responsible and Sustainable Living Images and Objects Active Methodology Toolkit 6
Chapter
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Major environmental problems at the present time can readily generate many unpleasant feelings in anyone digging into the roots of the current world situation. However, this paper tries to emphasize an alternative way. Humans are subject to determinism but retain a capacity to choose an attitude against our situation in life and ourselves. The pape...
Article
This study provides evidence of the significant life experiences that have influenced teachers’ attitudes towards the environment and present their teaching practices within environmental education. Three groups of teachers (preschool, primary school and biology), working in preschools and in nine-year long compulsory basic schools in Slovenia comp...
Article
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Background and Purpose: Forest managers are facing challenges in balancing the demands for forest social services raised by the general public and forest productive services. Knowing local people’s attitudes, taking into account their needs and respecting their opinions, introducing social aspects should become a management priority to ensure succe...