Educational practices and students’ ability to differentiate between native and exotic species in schools in Southern Brazil

Abstract

Rising urbanisation and destruction of biomes have alienated humans from native species in their regions, demanding consideration of local ecosystems. The present study aimed to analyse the knowledge of students from public schools located in southern Brazil about native and exotic species, biomes, and biodiversity, and the difficulties that they attributed to these definitions. Research activities included lecture-discussion, fieldwork, and questionnaires, and data were analysed with Chi-Square, Fisher’s Exact Test, Binomial Test, Spearman’s Correlation and Content Analysis, employing a Mixed Method Research design. Middle School students showed lack of conceptual knowledge and attributed greater levels of difficulty to the concepts in comparison with High School students, while native species and the concept of biodiversity were better defined than exotic species and biomes. Moreover, students associated the concepts of ‘native’ and ‘exotic’ to ‘known/common’ and 'unknown/rare/strange', respectively.