Abstract
The study of children’s environmental perception is an essential tool for understanding the behavior and planning actions that provide awareness and development of their ethical position towards the environment they live in. The objective of this study was to evaluate the opinion of students of the 5th year of Elementary School about the concepts related to the importance of the environmental condition to plants. The activities involved 26 children from nine to eleven years old. They made: 1) a comparison between Boldo Mirim (Plectranthus neochilus) and Boldo Brasileiro (P. barbatus); 2) an experiment with Boldo Brasileiro and observed the development of this plant in relation to two nutritional conditions of the soil and four solar intensities. It was possible to identify the children’s perception of plant characteristics and the results of the experiments performed through the measurements they made on the plants, the observation of the experiment carried out, their questionnaire replies, their reports, and their drawings. This strategy contributes to children’s knowledge of abiotic (soil, light) and biotic factors (root production, and plant growth) related to plant phenotipic plasticity in response to different environmental conditions. The activities performed helped the children to construct environmental perception and deconstruct the botanic blindness that affects most people since an early age.
Highlights
Concern about the environment is evident in the face of the degration and consequent loss of biodiversity and natural resources
It was possible to identify the children’s perception of plant importance to the nature and human health through the measurements they made on the plants, the observation of the experiment carried out, their questionnaire replies, their reports, their drawings, and a conversation that was established by the end of the activities to verify their understanding about the developed steps
The children realized the differences between the Boldo Brasileiro and Boldo Mirim related to leaf size, smell, and color
Summary
Concern about the environment is evident in the face of the degration and consequent loss of biodiversity and natural resources. In this sense, it is imperative to promote the awareness of the population in order to maintain these precious assets. To conserve it is necessary to know and we often do not realize what is around us. Popular knowledge that passes from one generation to another range from facts about natural phenomena such as rainfall regime, the cycle of tides, the growth of animals and vegetables that belong to the food chain, and the pharmacological importance of some plants. The environmental perception of nature cycles has been distorted since the 1950s due to great urban growth and technological development. People who live in such environments tend to lose their ability to perceive the cycles of nature, losing the opportunity to construct mental images of the components of nature (Ribeiro, 2003; Marczwski, 2006; Pasa, 2011)
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