Applying phenetics approach to improve 21st century student plant literacy

The occurrence of plant blindness among students, then the plant literacy movement must be carried out intensively through learning in schools by applying phenetics approach. This study used a pre-experimental design pre-test and post-tests group. Pre-test about system thinking which is part of 21st century skills of critical thinking and problem solving regarding seed plants as aspects of 21st century plant literacy in high school students of class X MIPA in Bandung, conducted before phenetics learning. During learning, students are assigned to begin by identifying and selecting the characters of each taxon until reconstructing the phenogram. After phenetics learning, a post test was conducted. The results showed that there was an increase in 21st century plant literacy as much as 0.61 which included moderate categories and students could positively accept phenetics learning. Thus in addition to being a curriculum demand, phenetics also has the potential as a means to improve 21st century student plant literacy, but only a few aspects of system thinking can be developed. Further improvement is needed in phenetics learning, especially in selecting taxon and determining its characteristics.