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The fundamental things apply... as time goes by : Students' long-term memories from an ecology field excursion

The aim of this study was to investigate and analyze what biology students remembered a long time after being out on an ecology excursion. The students' memories were tested during a stimulated recall interview and analyzed using the dual memory system model of learning. Already after 6 months we found that the students had forgotten a lot of the scientific content. Very often they showed a familiarity (recognition) with the situations and objects showed to them but they were unable to identify (recall) and label them. However they did remember some spectacular moment, the sudden appearance of a fox and a moose. They did also remember things and situations when they were active themselves, digging, smelling, using their hands or their feet's in the difficult balancing and walking on a pet bog. From literature we identified two different types of memories, depending of the question asked: recall and recognition. We connected memories used in recall to the explicit memory system (declarative knowledge), and memories used in recognition to the implicit memory system (tacit knowledge). The Explicit memory has a short retention but the implicit system is very stable and this will explain the difference in recall and recognition abilities. Since the implicit memory incorporates emotional, somatic, markers we were able to explain the specific flashbulb memories. The implicit system is active when we are doing things, using our senses and this may explain why those memories still were strong even after a full year. The strong memories of patterns stored in the implicit system seemed to act as indices to the declarable labels and facts in the explicit system. Implications for research, education and type of assessment are discussed.