University Extension and Informal Education: Useful Tools for Bottom-Up Ocean and Coastal Literacy of Primary School Children in Brazil

Gabriel Stefanelli-Silva,Paulo Paixão,Tânia M Costa,Juan C F Pardo

doi:10.3389/fmars.2019.00389

Gabriel Stefanelli-Silva, Paulo Paixão + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2019.00389

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Abstract

While increasing awareness about ocean-related topics is a matter of urgent necessity, ocean and coastal-literate schoolchildren are uncommon in Brazil, even in coastal cities. In the present study, we report the activities of an environmental education project spanning a three-year period in Sao Vicente, a city surrounded by marine habitats in the southeastern state of Sao Paulo. This project was part of a university initiative aiming to promote shared knowledge between marine biology student-monitors and the encircling community. With the aid of informal and practical educational activities, we introduced topics of marine zoology, marine ecology, waste management and recycling to fifth-year primary school children. During the project, 200 students took part in our activities. Using pre and post-instructional questionnaires, we evaluated the students’ general knowledge of provided ocean and coastal literacy topics. Our results showed a significant difference between initial and final perception across all questions, with a higher questionnaire score after activities. The highest increase in perception concerned lessons on the marine fauna found around the school (94.6% from the initial 7.9%), pointing to the intrinsic value of teaching biological sciences from a zoological perspective. Increased knowledge retention was also observed in pollution (52.6% from 26.7%), recycling (77.2% from 61.9%), and regional waste treatment lessons (51.8% from 24.2%). Overall, this initiative proved to be a fruitful addition to the school curriculum, especially considering the relevance of rapid urbanization, environmental degradation and water pollution in Sao Vicente and the role these children might exert as critical-thinking citizens in the future. On the other end, student-monitors were also provided with the opportunity for an informal teaching environment complementary to their usual academic-centric degree, with a fresh perspective on accessible scientific communication.

Highlights

University extension, known as university outreach, is considered one of the three pillars of higher education institutions in Brazil, a position shared alongside education and research (Brasil, 19881)
The latest census administered by the Brazilian Ministry of Education shows that only 11.5% of public primary schools in the country are equipped with biology laboratories, with the majority of teachers still relying on traditional textbooks despite the presence of computer labs in almost half of the schools (INEP, 20173)
A resident teacher and the school coordinator accompanied all activities, while our team was composed of undergraduates monitored by senior year marine biology students

Summary

Introduction

University extension, known as university outreach, is considered one of the three pillars of higher education institutions in Brazil, a position shared alongside education and research (Brasil, 19881). The role of environmental education in generating criticalthinking citizens is a topic that gained traction following Rio de Janeiro’s 1992 Earth Summit (Rio +20), manifested in the Agenda 21, a major program which established the necessary steps to achieve sustainable development in the 21st century One of such steps, on Promoting Education, Public Awareness and Training, culminated years later in the Política Nacional de Educação Ambiental (National Policy on Environmental Education); this policy aims to guide both formal and informal teaching of environmental education at all stages, through interdisciplinary practices and support of local and regional projects in Brazil (Brasil, 19992). The latest census administered by the Brazilian Ministry of Education shows that only 11.5% of public primary schools in the country are equipped with biology laboratories, with the majority of teachers still relying on traditional textbooks despite the presence of computer labs in almost half of the schools (INEP, 20173)

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