KNOWLEDGE ABOUT COMMON VERTEBRATE SPECIES IN GERMAN KINDERGARTEN PUPILS

Biodiversity has become a challenging educational topic and knowledge about animal species and their identification is one aspect of learning about biodiversity. There are few studies addressed at assessing vertebrate species knowledge and species identification skills in children prior to schooling (‘kindergarten'). Here, we tried to quantify the knowledge about fifteen animal species in a period before the onset of schooling as an assessment of prior knowledge. Children in the kindergarten were found to be able to identify common vertebrate species. Boys and girls scored equal in knowledge, but pupils with German as foreign language scored lower. There were significant differences between the eight kindergartens in our study. High scores have been found in a kindergarten within a large city.