Didactics of molecular ecology

Summary

Molecular biology conferred enormous progresses in biosciences during the past few years. This paradigm permutation in biological research certainly challenges biological education. Nevertheless, this is no reason to fundamentally reorganise biological education at the universities. A most entire view of the matter should remain a central request which meets the capacity and imagination of students. Selected biological phenomena taken from the traditional treasury remain suitable in the future too to mediate basic biological ways ot thinking. Forthcoming syllabuses, however, will necessitate the expansion of this concept. The scope of the present contribution is to show, how the integration of molecular biology in the teaching of classical disciplines of biology may be reached. Choosing ecology and environmental biology as examples, molecular biology will not only strengthen explanation models of cause-effect relationships in these disciplines, but also will facilitate the interconnections to interdisciplinary fields such as health education, social, and political education. This may result in an entire structural concept of classical and molecular biology.