Exploring Senior High School Students’ Social Representation of Biodiversity

—It is imperative that learners are aware of what is happening in the environment. They should understand how living and non-living things interact with one another as well as their similarities and differences. In the process, they will be able to appreciate nature and lead to deeper understanding of biodiversity concepts. Through context analysis, this qualitative study explored the Senior High School students' social representations of biodiversity. Students were asked to give three definitions on what biodiversity is. Themes were generated based on public's biodiversity social representations with the following components: (1) functions and benefits associated with biodiversity; (2) attributes and values connected to nature; (3) views on the relationships between humans and nature. It was found that the students focused more on the attributes connected to nature; followed by the functions and benefits associated with biodiversity and lastly their views on the relationships between humans and nature. Likewise, Senior High School students have a narrow concept of biodiversity in terms of the relationships between humans and nature and its aesthetic value; thus, sample active learning strategies are being forwarded