JONAED

The study was on how gender equity in students’ academic achievement in ecological concepts could be promoted in a depressed economy using the outdoor laboratory method of teaching. The population of the study comprised 1360 senior secondary two school students in one urban school and one rural school in Bauchi central and Katagum education zones. One hundred and thirty six students constituted the study sample selected from an urban and a rural school. The study employed then on randomized pre-test post-test non- equivalent control group design. An Ecological Concepts Achievement Test (ECAT) was for data collection from the students. The reliability index of the ECAT was determined as 0.99 using the Cronbach alpha method. Two research questions and three hypotheses guided the study. The research questions were answered using mean and standard deviation while the hypotheses were tested using t-test statistics at p≤0.05 level of significance. Findings from the study showed no significant difference between the mean ecological concept achievement scores of male and female students taught ecological concepts using the outdoor laboratory method. Furthermore, there was no significant difference between the mean ecological concept achievement scores of male and female students in urban and rural schools taught using the outdoor laboratory method. It was concluded that gender equity in students’ academic achievement in ecological concepts can be achieved by employing the outdoor laboratory method. It was recommended among others that teachers should incorporate the outdoor laboratory method for effective science education delivery this period of depressed economy where funds for provision of indoor science laboratory facilities are grossly inadequate