The effect of birdwatching activities on systematics terms learning in biology courses

A person must know some biological terms for bird watching. Also, specialize in bird watching contribute to improving the biological knowledge on birds. A number of biological terms can be easily learning by student in such activities. The contribution level of structured bird watching activities on student knowledge was investigated in this study. A class which consist of 30 undergraduate biology students were separated to almost equally three groups. First group joined to structured bird watching activities under control of an Ornithologist beside classroom courses. Second group joined only classroom courses and the third joined only bird watching courses. The terms were explained with examples in both courses. The students took an exam related to eight terms of systematics after courses. The exam was evaluated over 100 point. The students who joined both courses have highest achievement (85.2) between groups. The average exam score of other groups 65.5 and 71.5 respectively. The results show that the coupled courses have positive impact on learning of student. However only structured bird watching activities (groups third) are more effective than classroom courses according to study results. In conclusion, the outdoor educations such bird watching can be the best way to teaching for some biological terms. Because of this results, the biology curriculum can reconstructed according to this drawback.