Understanding Pandemics Such as COVID-19 through the Lenses of the “One Health” Approach

Abstract

This study aims to contribute to research on systemic thinking in biology education, particularly how to best equip pre-service teachers to introduce health problems such as the COVID-19 pandemic using the “One Health” approach. We attempt to explore to what extent a group of pre-service teachers identify our lifestyle and relationships with nature as factors that contribute to the emergence of future pandemics. The research questions are as follows: (1) What dimensions of the One Health approach did the students identify as potential causes that can produce and prevent future pandemics such as the COVID-19 disease? (2) To what extent did the students show a systemic view aligned to the One Health approach? The participants were 43 pre-service elementary teachers working on a set of activities about the COVID-19 pandemic, in which they were asked about the potential causes of and ways to prevent future pandemics. Content analysis of individual written responses is applied for addressing the research questions, focusing on the dimensions of the One Health approach and the level of system thinking reflected. Most participants focused on the human dimension and a few mentioned environmental and animal dimensions, which points to the need to integrate the One Health notion into teacher training.