Secondary School Students’ and Their Parents’ Knowledge and Interest in Crop Plants: Why Should We Care?

While there is increasing world-wide discussion of the importance of renewable
biological resources and a bio-based economy, science educators around the world have
become aware of a declining general interest in plants and agriculture and of little
knowledge of plants among the public. Recently, there have been few systematic
investigations on the knowledge of crops. To address this observation, we initiated a
questionnaire survey with secondary school students based on the assumption that
students should acquire a fundamental knowledge of agriculture and crop-plant biology
during compulsory education. As home is a source of information, parents were also
questioned. On the whole, 926 German secondary school students aged nine to 18 years
and 314 parents participated in our questionnaire survey. The data suggest an
unsatisfactory level of knowledge about crop plants among students. Girls have greater
knowledge and claim to be interested in crops more often than do boys. While
knowledge of species was independent of grade and age, knowledge of crop use did
increase with increased years of schooling. Parents showed an overall better
performance than the students’ on items involving plant recognition and their use.