Unprepared to Deal with Invasion: Pre-Service Teachers’ Perception, Knowledge and Attitudes toward Invasive Species

Rubén Ladrera,José Ramón Díez,Unai Ortega-Lasuen,Aritz Ruiz-González,Beatriz Robredo

doi:10.3390/su122410543

Rubén Ladrera, José Ramón Díez + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/su122410543

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Abstract

The serious and growing impacts of invasive alien species (IAS) on the planet make it necessary to include this issue with greater determination in educational programs, with the aim of generating citizens capable of dealing with this environmental problem in a sustainable way. Likewise, the management of IAS represents a clear socio-scientific issue (SSI), which gives greater interest to its inclusion in school. At this point, future teachers play a key role, so that their knowledge, perceptions and attitudes on the subject must be evaluated. In order to deal with this objective, a questionnaire was filled out by 400 students of the degrees in early childhood education and primary education of the Universities of La Rioja (UR) and the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Spain. Our results show that pre-service teachers do not perceive impacts of different types generated by IAS, and they show a clear lack of knowledge about transmission vectors. Likewise, they do not support various control measures, especially slaughter of invasive vertebrates, related to affective dimensions. These results highlight the need to work toward an appropriate integration of this issue at different educational levels, training students and educators, fostering favorable attitudes toward a sustainable management of IAS.

Highlights

Invasive alien species (IAS) represent one of the main concerns about the planet’s biodiversity [1,2,3]
81 students had completed a baccalaureate in earth and health sciences, the only one that contains the subject of biology, which included content related to IAS
The different aspects that Environmental Citizenship (EEC) promotes include the knowledge of ecological concepts and processes that provide the foundations for understanding the human impact on ecosystem functioning and ecosystem services [31], as is the case of IAS, which represents one of the main threats to biodiversity worldwide [2]

Summary

Introduction

Invasive alien species (IAS) represent one of the main concerns about the planet’s biodiversity [1,2,3]. The IPBES (Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) includes IAS among the five main causes of the deep global change that has been occurring in nature during the last 50 years [4]. Likewise, this problem has been intensifying in recent decades [5], so that accumulated IAS records have increased by 40% since 1980 [4]. The generated impacts go further, with important human well-being and socioeconomic effects [10], fundamentally concerning agriculture, forestry, energy and health sectors, generating associated costs for their control and eradication, and reducing ecosystem services [2,11]

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