Venetia D. Nikita

The COVID-19 pandemic served as an epistemological rupture in environmental health education (EHE). It reshaped the existing variable-centric, positivist educational framework through a relational, pluralistic, and systemic understanding of health. The concept of environment shifted from the setting of disease to the complex interface between abiotic, biotic and social processes. We argue that this new epistemology of EHE marked the transition from a pedagogy of distinct disciplinary approaches to transdisciplinary, hybrid, reflexive, and agile learning environments that integrate ecology, social determinants and ethical responsibility. The post-COVID EHE epistemology fosters critical scientific literacy to threat environmental health knowledge as provisional, contextual, and deeply political. This new pedagogical framework recognizes environmental justice as a structural driver of health equality. The future of EHE lies in its ability to prioritize community-based action and embrace uncertainty and epistemic diversity in the accumulation of health knowledge.

This study presents an innovative and interdisciplinary didactic approach for teaching biodiversity to high school students, aiming to enhance basic learning skills and promoting deeper understanding of biological concepts. The designed educational proposal aims to support policy-driven collaboration between schools and botanical gardens within the framework of coordinated and long-term educational policies. The intervention was designed to cultivate both cognitive and metacognitive skills within three (3) didactic hours, offering a holistic learning experience through the study of Tulipa members used as an alluring model. A total of 168 Greek first- and second-grade high school students (on average 16 years old) participated in the study. Biodiversity was examined in a multidisciplinary fashion, focusing on species’ diversity (phenotypic), genetic-karyological diversity, and habitat diversity. The core components of the approach included: (a) the completion of a corresponding worksheet module, which effectively engaged students in the learning process using the 5E didactic model, and (b) a karyotype lab experiment using living Tulipa specimens. The learning process was evaluated through two questionnaires assessing the acquisition of scientific knowledge and behavioral outcomes. The results showed a positive impact on students’ understanding regarding the genetic material and biodiversity, with the karyotype experiment playing a key role in achieving high performance in both cognitive and affective learning objectives. Knowledge scores were higher in the second-grade students (53–73%) than in the first-grade students (44–69%) of high school, especially regarding concepts such as karyotype applications and biodiversity-ecosystem balance. The karyotype experiment positively correlated with both the evaluation of the intervention and the shifts in biodiversity beliefs (Pearson’s r = 0.649, 0.515; p < 0.05, respectively). The modeled inquiry-based approach with living tulips and karyotype experiments can help schools and botanic gardens counteract plant blindness by enhancing cognitive and affective learning outcomes within a limited instructional timeframe.