Plant Awareness and Recognition of Plants as Living Beings in Biology Preservice Teacher
Puan Helwa Rezha Soraya (a*), Rini Solihat (a), Taro Harada (b)

a) Master Program of Biology Education, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia
Jl. Dr. Setiabudi No.229, Bandung 40154, Indonesia
b) Faculty of Education, Okayama University, 3-1-1 Tsushima-naka, Kita-ku, Okayama 700-8530, Japan

Abstract

Humans are very reliant on the existence of plants-from the need for daily life to the need to support the sustainability of the ecosystem. Given this, it can be said that plants have an important role for humans, both benefits that are directly or indirectly felt by humans. However, there are some people who are less aware of the existence and importance of plants for life, and leads to the phenomenon of Plant Awareness Disparity (PAD). Students as a small example of society and who will finally contribute to the community^s environment, must have an awareness of plants. In response to this, it is important for teachers to have plant awareness and have the awareness that plants are as important as other living things. In an effort to explore this, this study was conducted to reveal the level of PAD of biology pre-service teachers as future teachers who will prepare future generations. In addition, this study also explores the recognition of plants as living things in prospective biology teachers. This study used a descriptive cross-sectional method and gathered 35 respondents of biology pre-service teachers from one of the universities in Bandung, Indonesia. The results of this study revealed that prospective teachers had a moderate level of plant awareness (63%) while only 17% of prospective teachers had a high level of plant awareness. In addition, this study also revealed that prospective teachers mostly mentioned living things from the animal kingdom as living things (56%) compared to living things from the kingdom plantae (34%), monera (5%), fungi (3%), and protists (2%). From this search, it can be concluded that the biology pre-service teachers still have a tendency to overlook the plant and show a preference for animals. In response to this, there are concerns that PAD will create a cycle that will continue among students in the future.

Keywords: Plant Awareness Disparity (PAD)- Plant recognition- Biology pre-service teacher

Topic: Biology and Biology Education