Anna Beniermann's main research focus is on controversial science issues (CSI) in biology. These are scientific topics on which there is a scientific consensus, but which are the subject of controversial debate in society. In addition to evolution, these include climate change and vaccinations. She characterizes argumentation in order to develop evidence-based training for teachers on assessment and argumentation skills.
“Learners are not blank slates, but bring a wide range of ideas about biological phenomena from their everyday lives into the classroom or university seminar. This insight plays a role in my research and is a central aspect of my teaching,” explains Beniermann. ”If prospective biology teachers know what typical everyday ideas students have, for example, about evolutionary adaptation or the blood circulation, they have an invaluable basis for planning biology lessons.”
Anna Beniermann studied biology, chemistry, and philosophy at the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg. She completed her doctorate in the field of biology didactics at the Justus Liebig University of Gießen in 2018 with a dissertation on the acceptance and understanding of evolution. Subsequently, she led a major European research project on attitudes and ideas related to evolution in Europe as part of the EU-funded COST Action EuroScitizen.
From 2017 to 2019, she was head of philoscience, a non-profit science communication organization, and the “turmdersinne” hands-on museum for sensory perception and perception psychology in Nuremberg. She is actively involved in science communication, for example with popular science lectures and as a science slammer. From 2019, she was a postdoc in the Department of Research Biology Education at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. There, she also led two research and transfer projects on gamification in science communication and biology teaching on the topic of climate change and received an award as part of the “Open Humboldt Freiräume” funding line.
In 2021, Anna Beniermann held a substitute professorship in the field of biology education at the University of Kassel. Since 2023, she has been an editor and publisher of the interdisciplinary MNU Journal, which focuses on teaching practice, as well as the spokesperson of the Science Communication and Biology Education working group in the Biology Education section of the German Life Sciences Association (VBIO).
