A proposal on the biological education in the elementary and junior high school. Recommendation of the training by systematic biology

Abstract

Since living things has been familiar to approach the natural science, the teachers ofthe elementary and junior high schools have commomly used the biological materials. Consequently, the students know the names of various plants and animals. However, most of them did not recognize dragonfly and grasshopper as animal. Probably they have understood that word of animal means only four-footed animals. It has been reported that a similar example was shown in a certain university. Ten percent of the students did not think thatinsect belong to animal kingdom. This shows the result from that the basicbiology has been minimized throughoutthe biological education.

Systematics and morphology are needed to be incorporated into the biological curriculum, espe­ cially, in the elementary school. The school children willgain the valuable information during the process ofidentification of living things, but not the amount ofthe knowledge in this field. From this pointofview, the method ofsystematics or morphology is very and suitable for the students to cultivate their own discerment. In this paper, I state the effectiveness oftaxonomictraining in the education of the natural science and describe Aristotles classifcation of animal kingdom.