Through the eyes of children: Drawings as an evaluation tool for children's understanding about endangered Mexican primates

Abstract

This study seeks to understand children's perceptions and knowledge of endangered Mexican primates. The black howler monkey (Alouatta pigra) is a charismatic species endemic to Southern Mexico, Northern Belize, and Guatemala and is a symbol of the region that fosters a sense of local pride. Therefore, it can be considered a flagship species for the forests of Southern Mexico. We evaluated the perception and knowledge that 297 Mexican elementary school children (8-10 years old) have about black howler monkeys. Specifically, we analyzed and categorized drawings made by these children based on gender, geographic context (rural or urban), and residence within or outside of Protected Areas (PAs). Student drawings were categorized into three levels of knowledge (no familiarity, basic knowledge, and sophisticated knowledge). Common misconceptions and important landscape elements for black howler conservation were gathered from these visual representations. Children were largely unfamiliar with black howlers, despite sharing the same geographical location. Knowledge was affected by context and residence, with students living within PAs more aware of black howlers than students living outside of PAs. However, overall the children showed a deep understanding of the current forest conservation situation in Southern Mexico; meaning they could be presenting a shifting baseline syndrome. The study highlights the value of assessing children's drawings as a tool that can be used to help policy makers and educational practitioners in fine-tuning educational, environmental, and marketing programs. More importantly, it is a methodology that can be applied in future research for understanding children's perceptions and knowledge about endangered species and environmental change in deciding how to improve the effectiveness of conservation messaging.

Evidence-based conservation education in Mexican communities: Connecting arts and science

“…For conducting and evaluating the arts-and-science based educational program at the selected schools we followed a sequential intervention that consisted of three stages at each school: 1) Rapport-building phase, via ice breaker games for creating a trusting environment, and pre-evaluation of knowledge through the analysis of drawing contents [14], 2) intervention, four groups per school participated, three of which were part of the arts-based educational techniques, with the fourth group serving as the control group; 3) post-evaluation of knowledge (through drawings analysis), and reinforcement of learning, carried out one month after the intervention. Before the intervention and in parallel, meetings were held with the parents and teachers to explain the activities that we had planned, providing opportunities for them to share feelings and suggestions, and give their verbal consent as legal tutors of the research participants.…”

“…Drawings were used to measure the children's knowledge about black howler monkeys (pre and post) [14,33,34]. Crayons and a sheet of paper with a howler monkey silhouette were given to the children, and they were encouraged to make a drawing that could answer the following question 'What does this animal need to live well?'…”

“…Both evaluators took part in the classroom activities. Strict pre-determined rules of interpretation were followed (see Franquesa-Soler & Serio-Silva [14] for methodological details). Interrater reliability was measured by calculating the percentage of agreement.…”

“…Pre and post scores were compared to assess the effectiveness of each method of intervention (see below). In addition, the following specific indicators of the change between the pre and post were considered: (i) yellow mombin (Spondias mombin), also known locally as jobo, is a fruit eaten by black howler monkey and it was included in the content of the stories, so we evaluated the appearance of this element in the post-drawings; (ii) assessment of whether several assumptions or misconceptions that were detected in the pre-analysis (banana as food source, brown color to describe this primate species, and locating the animal on the forest floor [14]) persisted after the interventions.…”

“…Conservation efforts should also encourage local participation and incorporate local knowledge systems to inform culturally-relevant educational programs that inspire respect towards primates and their habitats in culturally-relevant ways [14,15]. Additionally, these animals are charismatic species, which facilitates the implementation of conservation strategies [4,16,17], helping to reach wider goals in biodiversity conservation.…”