Northeastern Brazilian students’ representations of Atlantic Forest fragments

Abstract

Although a growing number of investigations have considered the theme of environmental perception, few have focused directly on young people. The present study examines the perceptions of the local landscape held by students in fifth through eighth grades in the municipality of Igarassu in the Atlantic Forest-namely, Pernambuco (northeastern Brazil). To that end, students were asked to write an essay with the prompt, ''When someone talks about the forest, I think of….'' They were also asked to make a drawing with the prompt, ''When I think of the forest I see….'' Afterward, a structured interview (projective type) was conducted using six photographs of environments with different degrees of anthropogenic interference. The students were asked to order the photographs according to the degree of preference they felt toward them. In the majority of essays, it was possible to determine esthetic and utilitarian aspects of the forest, descriptions of its biodiversity, as well as the sentiments of the students in relation to the environment and to the necessity of protecting it. The drawings showed a large number of exotic elements, which may have been influenced by the current teaching methods that do not contextualize pedagogical subjects within local reality. In terms of the ordering of the photographs, it was observed that, for the students in fifth and seventh grades, the image of a less urbanized environment stood out as most preferred, while a natural environment was last in the preferences of students. For the students in sixth grade, the image of a natural environment was most preferred, while a less urbanized environment was the least preferred. The students of the eighth grade demonstrated satisfaction with images of an urban environment, while the natural environment represented by an image of the forest occupied last place in their preferences. This type of inquiry may be useful to environmental education programs, as our findings help such programs adapt their efforts specifically to the visions and expectations of their focal groups.Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.

Evolutionary ethnobiology and cultural evolution: opportunities for research and dialog

“… Human perception How does human perception of the environment affect the resources that will be known or used? [ 98 , 99 ] Different people may have different cultural selection biases and different transmission pathways that depend on their individual or social perception. Therefore, perception affects the mechanisms that are used by people to recognize the more adaptive information.…”

Colheita de pinhões da Pewen (Araucaria araucana): uma situação significativa que liga as crianças Mapuche à Natureza

“…Es por ello que resulta clave comprender las percepciones locales y las formas en que las personas se relacionan con su entorno natural (Raymond et al 2017). Ésta es una labor difícil de abordar, en parte dada la compleja naturaleza de la percepción, que involucra atributos de índole fisiológicos, físicos, psicológicos y culturales que no pueden ser abarcados en su totalidad con las herramientas de investigación habituales, haciéndose necesaria la implementación de distintas metodologías complementarias (Bell 2001;Silva et al 2010;Silva et al 2014). No obstante, una posibilidad de abordaje inicial es indagar sobre las experiencias significativas en el desarrollo de "conexiones humano-naturaleza" (HNC, en sus siglas en inglés), que generan un conjunto de valores y creencias asociadas a comportamientos tendientes al cuidado del medioambiente (Stern 2000;Hunecke et al 2001;Kaiser et al 2011).…”

Students' Perception of Urban and Rural Environmental Protection Areas in Pernambuco, Brazil

“…In different regions of the world, protected areas are considered important for the conservation of biological diversity [1,2] and the provision of benefits and services to surrounding communities [3][4][5], suggesting that their utility positively influences people's perceptions [6,7]. The utility of forests and their diversity are also important subjects in early formal schooling [8][9][10][11][12], helping children develop positive perceptions about protected areas.…”