The paper addresses a highly relevant topic (the need to take students into greater consideration as active subjects of their own learning), and focuses on the teaching of biology, an area that (together with the rest of scientific disciplines) is witnessing a worrisome drain of vocations. It contains interesting insights, such as the importance of the not so often considered worldviews, or the contribution of informal learning as a part of life-long learning. All in all, I consider the paper contains interesting elements, but it should be revised thoroughly to improve internal coherence and to convey more convincingly its relevance before it can be considered for publication in this journal. I. The paper does not meet the requirements to be considered "article" under Education Sciences guidelines for authors: "The journal considers all original research manuscripts provided that the work reports scientifically sound experiments and provides a substantial amount of new information". In short, the manuscript is a concatenation of findings from previous works but does not convey any new information. It cannot be considered a review, either. To compensate for the lack of novel data, the authors could try to construct a sound argument, with a clear structuring element that would articulate the different parts of the manuscript and maintain internal coherence. The discussion around this emerging element of cohesion will justify the novelty of the claims in the manuscript.

II. In line with the comment above, for me, the rationale behind the argument is not clear. I.e., what is the purpose, or the expected outcome, of taking students’ concerns more seriously?. In fact, the authors claim several reasons throughout the manuscript; namely: - 1. Introduction: to stop the drain of students, which become disengaged and leave as soon as it is no longer compulsory. - 2. Curriculum arguments: enabling students to develop themselves and so flourish, promoting autonomy and avoiding the feelings of not fitting with the schooling. - 3. Independent research project: improvements to learning and their more general attitudes to science, including attitudes to pursuing a career in science. - 4. Informal education: development of skills, dispositions, practices and knowledge; better science learning. Interest in science. - 5. Worldviews: Unclear. Understanding better the reason why students react the way they do, and thus being capable of designing a more effective teaching? - 6. Discussion: Help students to develop autonomy, design biology lessons which are more respectful with the students and more engaging. All of them are desirable outcomes and could be, in a way, related to each other, but they are not necessarily so. In fact, they focus on different elements of the system which would benefit from the change they suggest (the discipline, the student as a person, the student as science learner, the teacher as the architect of the teaching interactions). I suggest the authors elaborate further on these ideas. What is the ultimate role of teaching biology? (nurturing independent and fulfilled persons, recruiting more scientists, increasing general attitudes towards science). What does it mean to improve biology teaching? Is success a synonym of proficiency and/or of growth? etc. III. Likewise, “concerns” appear as a rather vague term, with varying connotations depending on the section: (section numbers like above) 1. Interests and dispositions 2. The need for personal development (be prepared for a life of autonomous, whole-hearted and successful engagement in worthwhile relationships, activities and experiences). Ability to decide and make choices. 3. Independence = control over the content of the practical work and the way it is undertaken. 4. Voluntary participation, feelings of positive engagement. 5. Personal, reasonably coherent ways of understanding reality 6. Ontological imperative to develop autonomy.

To which denotation should we give priority? Does all of them equally contribute to the overall goal (whatever it is)? Or are all facets of the same concept, or body of related concepts?. Like above, I'd encourage the authors to elaborate further on these ideas and their mutual connections, in the introduction and/ or discussion sections.

IV. As a consequence, in its current state, the manuscript is not very useful for practitioners wishing to take their students’ concerns into account. For this work to be relevant to the academic community, I would advise the authors to be more categorical in their opinions (what curriculum model do they opt for, Michel Young’s or John White’s arguments? a combination of both?) or more explicit about the reason why these precise strategies have been chosen as an example of approach respectful of students' concerns, and which are the critical elements making the difference.

In turn, the discussion about each of the strategies is based on a limited literature review, with an overly simplified discourse centred on the students' concerns, which does not consider alternative explanations. For example:

• Why are independent research projects effective? Because they give the students autonomy... or because they face them with real, open, relevant questions?
• If the reason for mentioning research projects is that they promote autonomy, why to consider only research projects, and no other strategies (inquiry, PBL..).
• Museums: Heureka and Exploratorium are very special places, and conclusions drawn from there cannot be directly extrapolated to all the museums. Again, the exception is presented as the norm. And, once again, museums have a positive effect because the participation is voluntary (who decided to go to the museum, the parents/ teacher, or the student?), or because of the characteristics of the exhibitions or experiments they propose?

V. Minor concerns include: - The keywords are inadequate. I suggest removing, at least, John White, Michael Young and flourishing (at least as an isolated adjective without any accompanying noun). They are unlikely to be used as search terms.

• The introduction is, at present, an extended abstract. Please use this section to establish the context of the work being reported, accompany it by primary research literature and summarize your current understanding of the problem you are investigating. You could also briefly state the purpose of the work in the form of a hypothesis, questions, etc.

The paper has been somehow improved: now each of the individual sections finishes with a small paragraph summarizing the key points and the contribution to the idea of "students' concerns", which is constructed along the text. Now teachers wishing to respect students' interests and dispositions while keeping their engagement with biology have better clues about how to do it. Also, the discussion is (only a bit) more explicit about the expected outcome, or the objective of taking them more seriously. I appreciate the effort to write the text in a more impersonal way, avoiding overuse of the first person. However, I find most of the changes have been small modifications to incorporate specific suggestions, but no the deep, structural changes it required. So, most of my previous objections still persist, and especially: 1. The introduction section cannot be considered a proper introduction, since it does not provide much theoretical background to understand the importance of taking students' concerns seriously and, above all, it makes very limited reference to others' work and the state of art knowledge about the topic. 2. the text has still the taste of a recollection of isolated examples, all necessary but not sufficient. I mean all of them are relevant to the topic under consideration (they engage the students in different ways, by providing them with autonomy, enjoyment, relevant experiences beyond daily experience...) but they don't probably cover the full concept, neither they consider other relevant alternatives. As I suggested earlier, explaining better how the different elements contribute to the main thing (in the introduction or the discussion) would help. I have also some new concerns about this revised version: 1. The first sentences of the introduction lack coherence among them and with the text: The main research question is not "whether students concerns should be taken into account". This is the departing point of the argument. What is examined throughout the text is how different teaching strategies or approaches serve to increase students' engagement with biology and learning. The conclusion of the paper is not that "most biology education fails to take concerns into account". This is not even mentioned (to which point the mentioned strategies are prevalent in schools). In any case, such a question "Should students' concerns be taken into account?" cannot be answered with "They are not considered enough". 2. In my view, what makes the strategy in the course about creationism valuable is confronting ideology with the systematic study of the scientific evidence, not necessarily the fact that the students had been raised in creationism. Ok, I see the idea is that the teacher must consider the students' ideological background to make a careful approach to the question, but, as it is written, the antecedent of the "This" in line 373 is quite of a mystery.