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Introduction
Many studies have shown that interest-triggered learning
activity leads to a higher degree of deep-level learning
(Krapp, 2002).‘Interest’ is a relationship between an individual
and an object. Most researchers differentiate between individ-
ual and situational interests (Krapp, Hidi and Renninger,
1992). Individual interest is understood to develop gradually
and affect one’s knowledge and values over time, while situa-
tional interest appears suddenly as a response to something in
the environment and is more emotional in nature (Hidi, 1990).
Situational interest is thought to have only short-term impact,
whereas individual interest is believed to be more stable.
The general view of school education is that pupils’ knowl-
edge of a school subject is acquired in the classroom within
varying educational settings organised by the teachers.Very lit-
tle importance is attached to children’s out-of-school experi-
ences.Informal learning may occur at home,in everyday situa-
tions like interaction with friends,watching TV,reading books
or magazines, in various hobbies and junior organisations, as
well as in institutions like museums and zoos.Out-of-school
activities and experiences in varied learning environments may
enhance children’s interest in school subjects,too.According
to a contextual view of learning in informal contexts, the
engagement of the learner to learning depends on personal,
physical and sociocultural contexts (Braud and Reiss, 2004).
Much research in science education has revealed that
pupils are usually more interested in biology than other science
subjects (Fairbrother, 2000; Osborne, 2003). Gender is an
important factor relating to pupils’ interests and attitudes
Students’ interest in biology and their
out-of-school experiences
Interest in biology and the out-of-school experiences of Finnish secondary school pupils (n=3626, median age 15) were
surveyed in the spring of 2003 using the international ROSE questionnaire. Likert-scaled items were categorised with an
explorative factor analysis. The scores of eight interest-context factors and seven out-of-school experience factors were
studied. More boys than girls were interested in basic processes in biology, whilst more girls than boys found human biology
and health education interesting. Out-of-school nature experiences were the most important factor correlating with interest
in biology. Out-of-school experiences in science and technology-related activities, such as using science kits and constructing
models, had the highest correlation with an interest in basic processes in biology, such as ecology, cell biology and genetics.
Out-of-school experiences of caring for farm animals correlated with an interest in applied biology, such as agriculture.
Experiences linked to design and technology, or information technology, were the least important factors to correlate with
any studied interest contexts.Thus to enhance pupils’ interest in learning more about biology and the living environment
in general, it is important to put more emphasis on pupils’ out-of-school nature experience and their engagement in informal
learning in contextual outdoor environments.
Key words:Interest in biology; Out-of-school experiences; Gender differences
Anna Uitto, Kalle Juuti, Jari Lavonen and Veijo Meisalo
towards science,with boys being on average more interested
in physics and girls in biology. In addition, according to the
evaluation of The National Board of Education in Finland on
comprehensive schools, the grades of girls in biology and
geography were significantly higher than those of boys, but
the reverse was found in physics (Rajakorpi, 2000).In many
studies concerning boys’ and girls’ interest in science and
learning science, the meanings of sex and gender are rarely
explicated. In this study we engage a cultural construction
interpretation of gender. This means that, as learners, girls
and boys cannot be simply regarded as two separate groups.
Possible differences in interests cannot be explained by
inherited and dichotomous sexual difference, but instead
largely by the expression of cultural gender roles,which are
developed through personal experiences (Gilbert, 2001;
Juuti et al,2004).
In this study we assume that the engagement in informal
learning may appear in pupils’ out-of-school experiences,
and we ask whether these experiences are related to pupils’
interests in biological or biology-related phenomena. We
asked the questions:
1. Are there any gender differences in regard to the interest
itself and the out-of-school activities?
2. Is there any correlation between pupils’ interest in biology
and their out-of-school experiences?
Material and methods
The study was carried out in connection with the interna-
tional comparative ROSE project (The Relevance of Science
Uitto et al | Students’ interest in biology
University of Helsinki, Finland
124 JBE Volume 40 Number 3, Summer 2006
Students’ interest in biology | Uitto et al
Education), focusing on students’ views of science and science
education. The background, rationale and development of
the ROSE questionnaire is described by Schreiner and
Sjöberg (2004).The survey data was collected with a question-
naire, translated into Finnish from English. A total of 75
Finnish primary schools were selected by weighted random
sampling, which included schools having at least 20 students
in Grades 7 to 9. The questionnaire was sent to schools in
March 2003, and 26 reminders were sent to 35% of the
selected schools in May. Altogether 3,666 pupils answered
the survey, of which 3,626 indicated their gender.The median
age of the pupils was 15 years.After returning the question-
naire, coding for SPSS files was done by automatic scanning
of the returned questionnaire sheets.
The questionnaire contained 108 statements of pupils’
interests in science education and 61 statements of their out-
of-school activities.Eight national questions concerning basic
biological processes were included at the end of the ROSE
questionnaire. For each statement the pupils were asked to
indicate their response by ticking the appropriate box below
the topics:‘What do I want to learn about? How interested are
you in learning about the following?’ and ‘My out-of-school
experiences. How often have you done this outside school?’ The
interests were recorded with a four-point Likert scale ranging
from ‘not interested’ to ‘interested’, and out-of-school activities
with the same scale ranging from ‘never’ to ‘often’.The two
categories in the middle of the scale were untitled.There was
no neutral middle point or ‘do not know’ category, but the
introduction to each question set stated that the pupils could
refrain from ticking any boxes if they did not know how to
answer.
To find out pupils’ interests in biology and their main out-
of-school experiences, appropriate items were chosen for a
further multivariate analysis.The items’ selection was carried
out using stepwise explorative factor analysis (EFA), in
which most insignificant items were gradually excluded to
find the best fit model.The 38 interest items dealt with pupils’
interests in different aspects of general biology (ecology,
zoology, genetics, evolution) or biology-related content (applied
biology, human biology/health education).The 32 out-of-school
experience items dealt with various everyday activities.
In the EFA, maximum likelihood was used as the extrac-
tion method, rotation being Promax (kappa=4) with Kaiser
Normalization. The calculated Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO)
measure of sampling adequacy and Bartlett’s Test of sphericity
for the factor analysis showed that the data were adequate
for EFA. For the interest context, the KMO measure for
Sampling Adequacy was 0.972 and in the Bartlett’s Test the
approximate Chi-Square was 79312 (df=1035, p<0.001).
For the out-of-school experiences the corresponding values
for the KMO measure were 0.897 and for Bartlett’s Test
48601 (df=496, p<0.001).
Boys’ and girls’ factor scores were compared with the
independent-samples t-test. The power of the statistical dif-
ference was analysed by calculating the effect size measure
(d) for the groups (Cohen, 1988), because it is independent
of sample size. The measure is calculated as the difference
between two means, divided by the standard deviation of
either group.A two-way Spearman correlation analysis was
used to determine if there were any relations between the
pupils’ interest context factors and their out-of-school expe-
rience factors.
Results
Eight factors describing the pupils’ main interest contexts in
biology explained 53% of the extraction sums of the squared
loadings (Tables 1 and 2, overleaf). Seven factors that
described different out-of-school activities explained 52% of
the extraction sums of the squared loadings (Tables 3 and 4).
The number of items in the interest context factors varied
between five and eight and in experience factors between
two and eight.The reliability index of Chronbach’s avaried
between 0.78 and 0.90 for the interest context factors (Table 2)
and between 0.77 and 0.89 for the out-of-school experience
factors (Table 4).
Each interest-context factor was named according to the
loaded items,emphasising the highest loadings and common
contents of the factor items.The interest-context factors were
categorised subjectively as ‘general biology’ or ‘human biology/
health education’ (Table 2).The out-of-school experience fac-
tors (Table 3) were named according to the activities they
described (Table 4).
The factor correlation matrices used in the EFA revealed
positive correlations within the interest-context factors (Table
5a) and within the out-of-school experience factors (Table
5b). The highest correlations between the interest-context
factors were found to support the categorisation presented in
Table 2, especially when it came to ‘human biology/health
education’.‘General biology’ was a more heterogeneous cate-
gorisation, and, for instance, IF8 correlated with the factors of
both interest categorisations (Table 5a). As for the out-of-
school experience factors, EF1 ‘science and technology’ evi-
dently correlated with EF5 ‘design and technology’. EF2
‘nature’ correlated somewhat with other factors,but the corre-
lationwas lowest with EF3 ‘computers’. Instead, EF3 corre-
lated clearly with EF6 ‘mobile phones’.
The gender difference was always statistically significant
(two-tailed t-test;t=5.2-34.4, df=3548-3624, p<0.001), when
calculated from the scores of different interest context factors.
However, the effect size of the gender difference was ‘large’
only in the interest contexts of ‘basic processes in biology’
(d=0.95; Mboys>Mgirls) and ‘personal appearance and fitness’
(d=1.08;Mgirls>Mboys). The effect size of the gender difference
was ‘medium’ (d=0.59; Mgirls>Mboys) in the interest context
of ‘common health and illness’.Girls liked ‘applied biology’,
‘zoology’ and ‘genetics and evolution’ more than boys did,but
in these cases the effect size of the difference was small
(d<0.5). Boys were more interested in ‘human body in
extreme conditions’, but the effect size of this difference was
also small (d=0.18).
As for the out-of-school experiences,there was no significant
gender difference in the experience of caring for ‘farm animals’
(FE4). In the other factors, a significant gender difference
(Mboys>Mgirls) was found in using ‘computers’ (EF3, two-tailed
t-test;t =2.8, df=3326, p<0.01). In the other experience factors,
the difference was even more significant (two-tailed t-test,
t=16.3-39.4, df=2961-3606, p<0.001).The power of gender
difference was ‘large’ in the context factors of ‘science and
technology’ (d=1.37; Mboys>Mgirls) and ‘home economy’
(d=1.25;Mgirls>Mboys), and ‘medium’ (d=0.5-0.8) in the other
factors.Girls had more ‘nature’ experiences, but experiences
in ‘design and technology’ were more favoured in the boys’
group. In the experience of ‘computers’ use and caring for
‘farm animals’ the effect size was unremarkable.
Out-of-school ‘nature’ experience was the most important
JBE 125Volume 40 Number 3, Summer 2006
Uitto et al | Students’ interest in biology
factor correlating with the interest contexts in biology, espe-
cially with ‘applied biology’ and ‘zoology’ (Table 6).
Experience in caring for ‘farm animals’ correlated with the
interest context of ‘applied biology’ as well. Experiences in
‘science and technology’ correlated with the interest context
of ‘basic processes in biology’,and in this case the coefficient
at the highest (r=0.51) explained 26% of the variance of
either factor. Experience with ‘computers’ had generally the
lowest correlation (r<0.2) with the other interest contexts.
Discussion
Gender differences
Boys and girls had partially different interests in biology and
they had different out-of-school experiences.Girls were more
interested in human biology and health education, especially
in issues affecting personal appearance and fitness such as
exercise, healthy eating or eating disorders. Boys were more
126 JBE Volume 40 Number 3, Summer 2006
Table 1. Loadings of interest factors (IF1-IF8) reduced by the EFA from pupils’ interest items.Loadings < 0.3 are not included.
Items Interest context factors (IF)
IF1 IF2 IF3 IF4 IF5 IF6 IF7 IF8
Factors determining species’ distribution on land and in water. 0.83
What chromosomes and genes are and how they function. 0.81
What microscopically small organisms look like. 0.76
How oxygen is recycled. 0.76
What the cells of animals and plants look like and how the function. 0.73
How energy is transmitted to humans through the food web. 0.68
How species’ individuals communicate with each other. 0.62 0.35
What we know about HIV/AIDS and how to control it. 0.78
Sexually transmitted diseases and how to be protected against them. 0.77
How different narcotics might affect the body. 0.72
How alcohol and tobacco might affect the body. 0.71
Cancer, what we know and how we can treat it. 0.63
How to control epidemics and diseases. 0.54 0.32
The ability of lotions and creams to keep the skin young. 0.93
Plastic surgery and cosmetic surgery. 0.78
How radiation from solariums and the sun might affect the skin. 0.76
Eating disorders like anorexia or bulimia. 0.73
What to eat to keep healthy and fit. 0.52
How to exercise to keep the body fit and strong. 0.50
Plants in my area. 0.84
Animals in my area. 0.73
How to improve the harvest in gardens and farms. 0.72
Benefits and possible hazards of modern methods of farming. 0.69
Organic and ecological farming without use of pesticides and
artificial fertilizers. 0.64
How different sorts of food are produced, conserved and stored. 0.50
How plants grow and reproduce. 0.38
Symmetries and patterns in leaves and flowers. 0.37
Dinosaurs,how they lived and why they died out. 0.73
Animals in other parts of the world. 0.72
Dangerous and threatening animals. 0.62
How animals use colours to hide,attract or scare. 0.51
The possibility of life outside earth. 0.41
Deadly poisons and what they do to the human body. 0.73
Biological and chemical weapons and what they do to the human body. 0.72
The effect of strong electric shocks and lightning on the human body. 0.69
Epidemics and diseases causing large losses of life. 0.48
Poisonous plants in my area. 0.47
How radioactivity affects the human body. 0.31
Sex and reproduction. 0.76
Birth control and contraception. 0.71
How babies grow and mature. 0.43
Heredity, and how genes influence how we develop. 0.38 0.58
How the human body is built and functions. 0.41 0.51
The origin and evolution of life on earth. 0.40 0.47
How human beings have developed through evolution. 0.40 0.44
How gene technology can prevent diseases. 0.33
Table 2. Factors (IF1-IF8) interpreted as interest contexts in gener-
al biology and human biology/health education; percentage of vari-
ance explained by extraction sum of squared loadings and
Chronbach’s a.
Interest context factors No. % of Chronbach’s
of items variance a
General biology
IF1: Basic processes in biology 8 24.4 0.90
IF4:Applied biology 8 4.2 0.85
IF5: Zoology 6 2.9 0.78
IF8: Genetics and evolution 7 1.6 0.80
Human biology/health education
IF2:Common health and illness 6 10.3 0.89
IF3: Personal appearance and fitness 6 4.9 0.86
IF6: Human body in extreme
conditions 6 2.2 0.81
IF7: Sex and reproduction 5 2.1 0.83
Students’ interest in biology | Uitto et al
interested in basic processes of biology such as ecological and
cellular phenomena. The gender difference in the interest
contexts of applied biology, zoology, sexuality, genetics and
evolution was only small. The finding that girls are more
interested than boys in human biology is in accordance with
other studies (Dawson, 2000).
Moreover, when it comes to interest in physical phenomena,
Lavonen et al (2005) found from the same survey as this study
that girls preferred physics which was somehow connected
to human beings in all contexts.They also found that there
was no gender difference in the human context but there was
a significant negative difference in other contexts (Juuti et al,
2004). Girls’ interest in the context of health education,per-
sonal appearance and fitness may be partially explained by the
findings that many adolescent girls worry about their body-
image (Vereecken, Ojala and Jordan,2004). For instance, in
an international comparative study, as many as 43% of Finnish
girls aged 15 years old have been found to be dissatisfied
with their weight, 20% being the proportion for boys
(Mulvihill, Németh and Vereecken, 2004).
Boys liked the basic processes in biology more than girls did.
The result is surprising, because biology is generally favoured
more by girls than by boys (Dawson, 2000;Rajakorpi, 2000).
JBE 127Volume 40 Number 3, Summer 2006
Table 3.Loadings of experience factors (EF1-EF7) reduced by the EFA on pupils’ out-of-school experience items. Loadings <0.3 are not
included.
Items Experience factors (EF)
EF1 EF2 EF3 EF4 EF5 EF6 EF7
Used a science kit (like for chemistry, optics or electricity). 0.81
Made a model such as toy plane or boat etc. 0.79
Used a windmill, watermill,waterwheel, etc. 0.76
Used a water pump or siphon. 0.64
Made a bow and arrow, slingshot,catapult or boomerang. 0.59
Used an air gun or rifle. 0.54
Mended a bicycle tube. 0.47 0.42
Watched nature programmes on TV or in a cinema. 0.76
Collected edible berries,fruits, mushrooms or plants. 0.68
Read about nature or science in books or magazines. 0.62
Put up a tent or shelter. 0.49
Planted seeds and watched them grow. 0.49
Prepared food over a campfire,open fire or stove burner. 0.41
Made a fire from charcoal or wood. 0.39
Sent or received e-mail. 0.75
Downloaded music from the internet. 0.67
Used a word processor on the computer. 0.63
Played computer games. 0.51
Searched the internet for information. 0.47 0.38
Milked animals like cows,sheep or goats. 0.83
Watched (not on TV) an animal being born. 0.68
Made dairy products like yoghurt, butter,cheese or ghee. 0.64
Cared for animals on a farm. 0.64
Made compost of grass,leaves or garbage. 0.33
Used a crowbar (jemmy). 0.78
Used a wheelbarrow. 0.66
Used tools like a saw, screwdriver or hammer. 0.55
Used a rope and pulley for lifting heavy things. 0.40 0.49
Sent or received an SMS (text message on mobile phone). 0.96
Used a mobile phone. 0.88
Cooked a meal. 0.80
Baked bread, pastry,cake, etc. 0.74
Table 4. Factors (EF1-EF7) interpreted as pupils’ out-of-
school experience factors; percentage of variance explained
by extraction sum of squared loadings and Chronbach’s a.
Experience factors No. of % of Chronbach’s
items variance a
EF1 Science and
technology 8 15.9 0.88
EF2 Nature 7 18.0 0.77
EF3 Computers 5 7.9 0.77
EF4 Farm animals 5 2.8 0.77
EF5 Design and technology 5 3.0 0.84
EF6 Mobile phones 3 2.4 0.89
EF7 Home economy 2 2.0 0.82
Table 5a. Factor correlation matrix used in EFA for the interest-
context factors.
Factor IF1 IF2 IF3 IF4 IF5 IF6 IF7
IF1 1.00
IF2 0.01 1.00
IF3 -0.05 0.54 1.00
IF4 0.34 0.35 0.41 1.00
IF5 0.15 0.25 0.34 0.48 1.00
IF6 0.36 0.39 0.31 0.33 0.48 1.00
IF7 -0.02 0.41 0.51 0.25 0.29 0.28 1.00
IF8 0.29 0.47 0.44 0.34 0.37 0.42 0.21
Table 5b. Factor correlation matrix used in EFA for the out-of-
school experience factors.
Factor EF1 EF2 EF3 EF4 EF5 EF6
EF1 1.00
EF2 0.12 1.00
EF3 0.002 0.22 1.00
EF4 0.38 0.32 -0.19 1.00
EF5 0.47 0.31 0.39 0.14 1.00
EF6 -0.25 0.31 0.63 -0.25 0.32 1.00
EF7 -0.13 0.48 0.35 0.16 0.17 0.39
Extraction Method: Maximum Likelihood.
Rotation Method: Promax with Kaiser Normalization.
Uitto et al | Students’ interest in biology
From the survey used in this study, Juuti et al (2004) suggest
that in studying physics, boys like to know how technical
applications work and girls for what purpose the technical
applications can be used. According to Hoffmann (2002),
cultural gender roles affect pupils’ self-esteem, motivation and
interest in studying science subjects, which may influence
their interest in studying different topics of biology, too.
Boys and girls had partially different out-of-school experi-
ences. Boys had more experience with science kits and con-
structing models,while girls were more occupied with domes-
tic work such as cooking and baking.There was no clear gender
difference in the prevalence of computer use as such, but
girls used computers more for emailing, while boys spent more
time playing computer games.According to an international
comparative study, 21% of Finnish boys and 3% of girls aged 15
years were found to spend more than three hours daily playing
computer games during weekdays (Todd and Currie,2004).
Interest contexts and out-of-school experiences
The most important out-of-school factor correlating with
the different interest contexts in biology was the pupils’ gener-
al interests and activities in connection with the living natural
world.This appears in many ways: reading books or magazines
on nature; watching nature features on TV or in the cinema;
or hiking, camping, gardening, and collecting edible berries
in nature.
Experiences of caring for farm animals related to an interest
in applied biology, such as an interest in local plants and ani-
mals,modern methods of agriculture and farming, the use of
pesticides and artificial fertilisers, and food production.
Braund (1991) found that English pupils who had various
free-time nature hobbies or activities – for instance fishing,
bird-watching, trips to zoos or watching wildlife programmes
on TV – did better in animal and plant classification than
pupils lacking these out-of-school experiences. Likewise,
Tunnicliffe and Reiss (2000) found that the home was a
more important source of knowledge in plant classification
than school. Pupils’ interests, or non-interests, in different con-
texts of biology may thus be an expression of individual
longer-lasting interest (Krapp et al,1992; Krapp, 2003) in
informal out-of-school nature-related contexts.
Experience in using information technology, such as playing
computer games and emailing, did not relate to an interest in
varying contexts of biology. If nature activities are important
in generating an interest in biology, hobbies centred around
information technology may have taken time from this.Even
if computer-aided learning has been found useful in learning
biology (Kroß, 1998; Nerdel, Prechtl and Bayrhuber, 2003),
compelling free-time hobbies centred around information
technology may estrange pupils from real life experiences.If
some pupils’ free-time activities and experiences in nature are
limited, organising experiential outdoor learning environments
would be important for them, in order to evoke an interest
in biology-related phenomena and motivate them to learn more
about ecology, for instance, as shown by Bogner (2003).
Girls had more out-of-school nature activities than boys.
From the same survey, Uitto et al (2004) found that,on aver-
age,girls had more nature-centric attitudes towards environ-
mental values and positive attitudes towards environmental
responsibility than boys,who had more anthropocentric atti-
tudes.Although the factors enhancing positive environmental
attitudes are multiple, positive nature experiences play an
important role in the development of environmental respon-
sibility. Knowledge of ecology is important, but it is not the
only factor to predict the development of personal environ-
mental responsibility (cf Hungerford and Folk, 1991).Thus
interests and activities concerning nature may promote not
only an interest in biology, and especially ecology,but also a
positive attitude towards environmental responsibility.
Educational implications
The results of this study indicate that there is a connection
between interest in biology and the out-of-school nature
experiences of Finnish 9th grade pupils. The findings have
several implications.Firstly, when planning biology education
it would be important to know that, on average, boys and
girls may be engaged in different contents and contexts of
biology, with girls being more interested in human biology
and health education and boys being more interested in bio-
logical processes.However, teachers should be careful not to
approve of,or reinforce, stereotypical gender roles, which are
likely to lie behind the results of this study as well.
Secondly, to enhance pupils’ motivation and skills in learning
biology, it would be profitable to connect pupils’ out-of-school
nature experiences to classroom education. Nature experiences
represent a longer-lasting personal interest and engagement
in learning more about nature and biological phenomena.
Thirdly, it would be important to regularly organise well-
planned outdoor education in primary schools because field-
work, with its small-scale studies and observations, offers a
more contextual and experiential way to learn, for instance
about ecosystems,than conventional classroom education based
on theory. Situational interest may then gradually develop
into personal interest.Thus learning at zoos,botanical gardens,
science parks or research institutions may enhance pupils’
interest in learning more about biology at school, too.
128 JBE Volume 40 Number 3, Summer 2006
Table 6. Correlation coefficients (Spearman’s rho) between interest context factors and out-of-school experience factors.
Factors Basic processes Common health Personal Applied biology Zoology Human body Sex and Genetics and
in biology and illness appearance in extreme reproduction evolution
and fitness conditions
Science and
technology 0.51** -0.12** -0.19** 0.18** 0.04* 0.19** -0.04* -0.04*
Nature 0.09** 0.26** 0.29** 0.39** 0.39** 0.25** 0.17** 0.32**
Computers NS 0.07** NS -0.06** 0.10** 0.16** 0.05** 0.07**
Farm animals 0.16** 0.06** 0.20** 0.40** 0.13** 0.06** 0.12** 0.08**
Design and
technology 0.22** NS -0.11** 0.10** 0.08** 0.17** 0.05** -0.06**
Mobile phone -0.21** 0.15** 0.10** -0.06** 0.13** 0.09** 0.12** 0.05**
Home economy -0.18** 0.29** 0.39** 0.23** 0.21** 0.11** 0.23** 0.27**
Note.** p<0.01 (2-tailed),*p<0.05 (2-tailed).
Students’ interest in biology | Uitto et al
Motivating experiences in nature would be important espe-
cially for pupils who miss various nature activities in their
free time.The diversity of experiences in out-of-school settings
is greater than that in conventional classroom education;
thus for instance visual and kinaesthetic learners may achieve
better learning results (Braund and Reiss, 2004). Interesting
out-of-school excursions may also encourage pupils to engage
in various nature activities and hobbies in their free time.
Many pupils were interested in applied biology. Visits to
farmhouses,gardens or food industry facilities may therefore
be interesting in helping to learn where and why biological
knowledge and skills are needed in real life, for example in
various professions.With human biology and health education
being interesting topics for pupils,health rehabilitation insti-
tutions and first aid centres may be good places to visit and
learn in. Out-of-school education still needs careful planning,
along with prior and subsequent work at school (Braund and
Reiss,2004) and consideration of the curricular goals.
The findings of this study also have some interesting cur-
ricular connections, because many of the interest contexts
appearing in the study belong to the Finnish core curriculum
for comprehensive biology education, such as various biological
processes,zoology,evolution, genetics, human biology,ecology
and applied biology. Pupils learn the characteristics of terres-
trial and aquatic ecosystems and conduct small-scale studies
of one ecosystem during the 7th and 9th grades. As a new
objective,making a herbarium is also mentioned in the Finnish
core curriculum. In the context of outdoor ecology education,
the use of information technology may have many new possi-
bilities, for instance when studying ecosystems, by saving
authentic information on plants and biotopes using digital
cameras,portable phones or GPS.Thus the use of information
technology in field education may surprisingly also motivate
keen computer users to observe nature out-of-doors.
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Anna Uitto (corresponding author), Kalle Juuti, Professor
Jari Lavonen and Professor emeritus Veijo Meisalo are part
of the Department of Applied Sciences of Education, PO Box
9, Siltavuorenpenger 20 R, FI-00014 University of Helsinki,
Finland. Email: anna.uitto@helsinki.fi
JBE 129Volume 40 Number 3, Summer 2006
