Didactic transposition of the biodiversity concept. A study of Spanish high-school textbooks

Abstract

This paper studies the existence and complexity of the treatment of the biodiversity concept in middle and high school Spanish textbooks. Scientific papers from the «expert community» were reviewed in order to define the biodiversity conceptual framework, which acts as the epistemological vigilance during the process of didactic transposition. This revealed a multiplicity of biodiversity definitions, with a strong predominance of the number of species (richness), suggesting that many textbooks were outdated. In the light of the present study, the official curriculum does not lead to the transposition of a biodiversity conceptualization which is more in line with that of the expert community. Regarding the levels of complexity, we recommend the use of the «earth and environmental sciences» textbooks of the last year of high school in order to study biodiversity.