The nonbiotic world has received less attention from the conservationists than the living world. Consequently, the formulation of concepts centred on the nonbiotic world seems to have emerged as a necessity. Thus, the term “geodiversity” began to be used in the 1990s to describe the existing variety within inanimate nature expressed in different scales. Geoconservation also became an important dimension of conservationism, especially due to the UNESCO Geoparks Programme, which started in 1997. A Geopark is a territorial area that has relevant geological heritage, usually spread over several geosites with scientific, educational, cultural, aesthetic and economic value.

Since the concepts in discussion are more recent than those related to biodiversity, the importance given by pre-service teachers about geodiversity and geoconservation remains uncertain. Thus, this study aims:
1) to identify pre-service teachers’ knowledge about geodiversity and geoparks, based on the definition of these concepts;
2) to check how they value geodiversity, sometimes in confrontation with biodiversity value.

The study involved 84 pre-service teachers (75 – 89.3% female), age average 24.4, from an higher education institution, attending primary education training courses. A questionnaire was designed and included the following questions:
1. What is geodiversity?;
2. What is a Geopark? Give two examples of geoparks in Portugal;
3. What is your degree of agreement with several statements (presented in the results) related to geodiversity and biodiversity, using the scale from 1- Strongly Disagree to 5 – Totally Agree.

Descriptive statistics was used to show the results. The questions that asked for a definition were classified as:
i) correct;
ii) partially correct;
iii) incorrect, given a complete definition.

Concerning the results, the concept of geodiversity was only defined correctly by five students, showing a large majority an incomplete idea of the concept. The incorrect answers were given by 8 participants, normally confounding geodiversity with biodiversity. The geopark definition was presented correctly by almost half of the participants (41). Even so, none of the respondents associated the geological aspects with other features of nature, an aspect included in the definition of geopark proposed by the UNESCO. Half of the participants gave at least an example of a Portuguese geopark; the other half did not answer, or gave wrong examples.

Finally, the majority of participants tended to value geodiversity. Only the beauty of landscapes with geodiversity received a wider range of opinions, perhaps due to their lack of contact with the geological world or to a kind of blindness concerning the abiotic world, hypotheses that need confirmation. Even so, they rejected the idea that the non-living world is less important than the living world or that is less important to preserve geodiversity comparing to biodiversity. They also agreed that geodiversity is essential for biodiversity, since it is responsible for the creation of different habitats, contributing to increase biodiversity.

Based on the results, it is considered relevant that the present issue can be deepened in the context of teacher training courses, without missing the inclusion of formal outdoor activities in geoparks. Since research dealing with the present issue is not frequent, we hope that the present exploratory study may help to develop interest on this educational issue in other countries.

Keywords: Geodiversity, geoparks, pre-service teachers, education.