Professional Competencies of Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources for Biodiversity Education

In recent years, a number of biodiversity in Iran have become extinct and many of them are on the verge of extinction, while biodiversity plays an important role in environmental life and health. This includes a large number of cultivated and horticultural species. Universities can play an important role in preserving and improving biodiversity. On this basis, Higher education institutions around the world have begun to change their missions, goals, and perspectives to address and integrate the challenges of biodiversity conservation. Creating such an educational structure will not simply happen and will require research, re-thinking and revising the components of the university. The human component of the system of higher education in agriculture and natural resources is one of the pillars of the system that plays a central role in advancing the system's objectives in a dynamic and harmonious connection with other components. Therefore, this study was conducted to identify the components of faculty members' professional competencies for biodiversity education. This study was conducted with qualitative approach and inductive content analysis method. Required data were collected by semi-structured interviews with 24 experts in the field of environmental education and biodiversity selected by snowball sampling. He began the inductive content analysis by identifying the meaningful aspects and then labeling them in the form of qualitative identities and continued by categorizing the identities and linking them to categories. This process was implemented with the help of MAXQDA software. To validate qualitative findings, participant review and expert review strategies have been used. The findings showed that faculty members' professional competencies for biodiversity education included skills competencies, knowledge competencies, value competencies, and ethical competencies that each had indicators