Chapter 4: Long-Term Laboratory Inquiry: Promoting Understanding of Ecology

Science educators are united concerning the importance of learning ecology, recognizing the scientific endeavor and the impact of social, political, economic, and moral contexts on ecology. Students in the postmodern world are required to participate intelligently in decision-making processes pertaining to their own quality of life and to environmental issues (Driver, Leach, Millar, & Scott, 1996). However, numerous difficulties inherent to the study of ecology are often reported. Many have suggested that some of these difficulties may be overcome by learning ecology via inquiry, namely, by the acquisition of an understanding of both the empirical procedures of inquiry and the theoretical and conceptual ideas at its foundation (Bentley & Watts, 1992).