Percepção de alunos do ensino fundamental sobre a importância do solo utilizando mapas mentais

Abstract

Soil is an essential element for earthly life maintenance and it's fundamental to the environment. However, the soil component is usually not remembered with the issue of environmental degradation. Knowing that the children passes during their lifetime what they learn in childhood, so it becomes essential to awake environmental awareness in them. This work aims to evaluate the perception of elementary school students from public schools in Cruz das Almas county, Bahia, Brazil, about soil and their opinion on soil education in schools. For this, methodology used was the mental maps analysis, which deals with transfer to paper spatial images that represent individual experiences about a particular theme. Also, a survey with questionnaires was administered to assess the contact and knowledge of students about soil theme. Then workshops were held in order to bring more information on the subject and enlarge the contact between schools and soil teaching. Students demonstrated a soil awareness within the environmental context, but in general they need to improve knowledge about the theme. The workshops played a key role in reflection and awareness about soil importance.