It's May, but there's no sign of it on this grey cloudy morning. A chilly north wind is blowing across the meadows and groups of pupils are standing shivering in a sheep pasture. Not far off, the swoosh of traffic can be heard on Bünzstrasse linking Dintikon with nearby Wohlen.
The youngsters have marked off a square metre of ground using folding rules and are now in the process of determining the plants it contains. They've found only three kinds, which are hard to identify because sheep have eaten the plants to the ground: white clover, shepherd's purse, grasses. The pupils now have to count the individuals plants, which some don't find easy: "Everything's the same here," declares one. "Do we really have to count that?"
Yes, they do. Year 9's task is to carry out a mini scientific assignment as part of the LERNfeld environmental education and dialogue programme (see box). The quantitative and qualitative data are both equally important.
Learning to observe
The objective of LERNfeld is to get pupils between year 5 and the end of their baccalaureate year in secondary school to explore, through set learning activities, the role of agriculture in relation to biodiversity and climate change.
These learning activities involve using simple scientific methods for activities such as studying plant diversity in heavily and little-utilised cultivated land, observing insects on flowers, and finding out how flowers and pollinators adapt to each other.
Young university researchers as tutors
Instruction is provided by master's and doctoral students from Swiss universities – such as Ivo Beck, a technical assistant at the Institute of Grassland Sciences at ETH Zurich. His six-month course is even part of the curriculum of the Department of Environmental Systems Science, for which he receives a credit point. "I could easily go without that point, since I'm happy to be doing this work," says Beck. "Far more important from my point of view is the fact that I'm gaining teaching experience."
The 31-year-old scientist has completed his studies. Having read physics and specialised in climate and atmosphere, he's now in the process of obtaining his teaching qualification so that he can teach physics.
The pupils performing the LERNfeld activities on the land of organic farmer Ueli Meyer have spent several lessons preparing for the field research work. As with real research, they had to read themselves into the subject of biodiversity and come up with an introductory text for their assignments. They also formulated a hypothesis which they could then test using their field data. Out in the pasture, some pupils are now closely observing and meticulously recording insects visiting flowers. They'll then evaluate the data in the classroom, after which they'll discuss their findings with experts and fellow pupils before writing up the discussion part of their assignment.
