What is Tele-Secondary School

Biology and Environmental education are increasingly important disciplines to be taught in rural settings, where indigenous communities frequently hold ownership of invaluable natural resources. However, the Mexican science curriculum does not cater for the specific educational needs of the country's numerous ethnic groups. Situated learning is a pedagogical alternative that affords the possibility of integrating the pupils' culture and ways of interpreting the world within the curricular aims. Nevertheless, there are no reports of its usage in indigenous schools. This paper analyses two 90-minute classes as examples of how situated learning can be used to introduce the concepts of biodiversity and ecosystems in indigenous Zapoteca tele-secondary science classes. The results suggest that using situated learning for these topics helped students understand the concepts, see the importance of what they were learning, and motivated them to learn further.