Find the Plant—An Educational Game Fosters Plant Species Literacy

Abstract

Plants play a key role in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals, which call for a plant-aware and plant-knowledgeable public. This study investigated whether a non-digital educational game supplementary to a lecture on plant diversity can foster plant species literacy in student teachers of biology and environmental science students (n = 78). The 100 species of the lecture were displayed on playing cards together with their scientific names, plant families and symbols for further information. Two players alternately had to find out which plant their opponent had in hand by asking yes/no questions about possible characteristics of the species. Participation in the game was voluntary and took place in students’ free time. Before the game, interest in plants was moderately high and perceived competence to recognize plants was low. Students enjoyed playing the game and increased their interest in plants, their perceived competence to identify plants by species-specific morphological characteristics, and their actual plant species knowledge, as shown by an identification test on campus. A combination of a lecture and an accompanying game can thus be recommended to promote plant species literacy in higher education.