A crisis of clarity: can defining biodiversity help us protect the natural world?

Suitable for 14–19-year olds (secondary and high schools, and college), this article and accompanying activity sheet can be used in the classroom, STEM clubs and at home.

This resource links to KS4 and KS5 biology, conservation, biodiversity and philosophy.

It can also be used as a careers resource and links to Gatsby Benchmarks:
Gatsby Benchmark 2: Learning from career and labour market information
Gatsby Benchmark 4: Linking curriculum learning to careers

• This teaching resource explains the work of Professor Charles Pence, Faculty of Philosophy, Arts and Letters at Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium. He is investigating the correlation between how the definition of biodiversity may affect how effectively societies are able to conserve natural ecology.

• This resource also contains an interview with Charles and offers an insight into careers in the philosophy of science. If your students have questions for Charles, they can send the questions to him online by visiting the Futurum link below, scrolling down to the end and typing in the question(s). Charles will respond!

• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) to prompt students to reflect on Charles’ research and challenges them to consider how the current definition of diversity is affecting efforts of conservation around the world.

• The PowerPoint reiterates the key points in the article and includes further talking points to encourage students to reflect on their own skills and aspirations.

• The article and activity sheet are also available in French through the link below.

This resource was first published on Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14-19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, maths, medicine (STEM) and social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy (SHAPE).

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