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Effect of environmental education on the knowledge of aquatic ecosystems and reconnection with nature in early childhood
Blue and green ecosystems are considered a key for the improvement of cities sustainability, providing numerous ecosystem services and habitat for many species. However, urban streams are still neglected and degraded, specially in southern European countries. One important step towards the rehabilit...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9045661/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35476808 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266776 |
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author | Feio, Maria João Mantas, Ana Isabel Serra, Sónia R. Q. Calapez, Ana Raquel Almeida, Salomé F. P. Sales, Manuela C. Montenegro, Mário Moreira, Francisca |
author_facet | Feio, Maria João Mantas, Ana Isabel Serra, Sónia R. Q. Calapez, Ana Raquel Almeida, Salomé F. P. Sales, Manuela C. Montenegro, Mário Moreira, Francisca |
author_sort | Feio, Maria João |
collection | PubMed |
description | Blue and green ecosystems are considered a key for the improvement of cities sustainability, providing numerous ecosystem services and habitat for many species. However, urban streams are still neglected and degraded, specially in southern European countries. One important step towards the rehabilitation of these ecosystems is the awareness of their importance by citizens. This study aimed to assess the effect of 1-year of activities (field and laboratory) of an environmental education project on primary school children, in improving their knowledge on urban stream ecosystems and their problems. We analyzed students’ questionnaires before and after field and laboratory activities, drawings and group interviews. Initially, most children had incipient contact with rivers and streams, showing fears and lack of knowledge about them. As the project progressed, their perceptions changed, with a clear increase in the proportion of students recognizing the biodiversity associated to rivers (e.g., names of riparian trees, aquatic plants and invertebrates). Also, their fears decreased significantly, while their awareness to the impacts of artificialization and lack of riparian vegetation increased. Our results show that direct contact with nature have a positive role in the way it is understood by children, as well as promoting responsible and sustainable behaviors, being effective from the early primary-school years. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9045661 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-90456612022-04-28 Effect of environmental education on the knowledge of aquatic ecosystems and reconnection with nature in early childhood Feio, Maria João Mantas, Ana Isabel Serra, Sónia R. Q. Calapez, Ana Raquel Almeida, Salomé F. P. Sales, Manuela C. Montenegro, Mário Moreira, Francisca PLoS One Research Article Blue and green ecosystems are considered a key for the improvement of cities sustainability, providing numerous ecosystem services and habitat for many species. However, urban streams are still neglected and degraded, specially in southern European countries. One important step towards the rehabilitation of these ecosystems is the awareness of their importance by citizens. This study aimed to assess the effect of 1-year of activities (field and laboratory) of an environmental education project on primary school children, in improving their knowledge on urban stream ecosystems and their problems. We analyzed students’ questionnaires before and after field and laboratory activities, drawings and group interviews. Initially, most children had incipient contact with rivers and streams, showing fears and lack of knowledge about them. As the project progressed, their perceptions changed, with a clear increase in the proportion of students recognizing the biodiversity associated to rivers (e.g., names of riparian trees, aquatic plants and invertebrates). Also, their fears decreased significantly, while their awareness to the impacts of artificialization and lack of riparian vegetation increased. Our results show that direct contact with nature have a positive role in the way it is understood by children, as well as promoting responsible and sustainable behaviors, being effective from the early primary-school years. Public Library of Science 2022-04-27 /pmc/articles/PMC9045661/ /pubmed/35476808 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266776 Text en © 2022 Feio et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Feio, Maria João Mantas, Ana Isabel Serra, Sónia R. Q. Calapez, Ana Raquel Almeida, Salomé F. P. Sales, Manuela C. Montenegro, Mário Moreira, Francisca Effect of environmental education on the knowledge of aquatic ecosystems and reconnection with nature in early childhood |
title | Effect of environmental education on the knowledge of aquatic ecosystems and reconnection with nature in early childhood |
title_full | Effect of environmental education on the knowledge of aquatic ecosystems and reconnection with nature in early childhood |
title_fullStr | Effect of environmental education on the knowledge of aquatic ecosystems and reconnection with nature in early childhood |
title_full_unstemmed | Effect of environmental education on the knowledge of aquatic ecosystems and reconnection with nature in early childhood |
title_short | Effect of environmental education on the knowledge of aquatic ecosystems and reconnection with nature in early childhood |
title_sort | effect of environmental education on the knowledge of aquatic ecosystems and reconnection with nature in early childhood |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9045661/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35476808 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266776 |
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