Abstract
The biodiversity is the ultimate concept of life on Earth and includes all living organisms but remains a serious challenge at global scale, principally as result of human activities. The perception of biodiversity and their linkages to the ecosystems functioning and human well-being may have significant impacts in terms of Biodiversity Education and Sustainable Development (BESD). Interdisciplinary and participatory research, have increasingly strong evidence in the biodiversity conservation awareness. In early childhood, however, certain challenges come around in the understanding of basic concepts of biology and ecology, and their combination with the areas of proximal development of children. This chapter explores the effectiveness of a participatory research at early childhood through a discovery process focused on biodiversity experience. We intended to explore how biological understanding of the biodiversity and ecological processes at early childhood may contribute to BESD awareness. The participatory research undertook a constructive programme, with the active collaboration of researchers from life sciences, humanities, science education, kindergarten teachers, children, and artists. The perceptions, evaluation, and validation of the approach are emphasised in the ateliers progressively designed, in the drawings by the children, in the documentation by the kindergarten teachers, and in the interviews to the children. The findings focused attention on the understanding of biological and ecological interactions, the adaptations to climate, the food and the products of the Mediterranean forests, and the biodiversity legacy in Mediterranean region. We highlight the construction of a conceptual design from the child’s perspective that includes the children as actors/authors of knowledge, which resulted from mutual learning and active collaboration. The participatory research linked to real-life of children and local/regional context clearly contributed the extension to families and society. Moreover, the science-art collaborations did engage the children expressively. The paper concludes with remarks addressing the participatory research in early childhood to rise awarenes in BESD context, with attitude gains and lifelong outcomes.
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Acknowledgements
Data in this paper were generated as part of a study entitled «Exploring and Experiencing Mediterranean» inserted in the project «Montado: From Biodiversity to Ecosystem Services», co-funded by COMPETE—Competitiveness Factors Operational Program (FEDER) and National Agency Ciência Viva, Lisbon, Portugal (FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-016867). João Miranda and João Monteiro also acknowledge the financial support provided by the grants within FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-016867. The authors gratefully acknowledge to: António Carmo Gouveia, Catarina Moura, Helena Castro, Helena Freitas, and Sofia Costa, the scientific team at CFE-Centre for Functional Ecology, University of Coimbra; Carla Pacheco and Rui Dias, the scientific at CCVE-Centro Ciência Viva of Estremoz, Estremoz, Portugal; radio of university of Coimbra the support in the radio programme; media of the University of Coimbra for the edition of videos; Angela Filipe—sociologist—the engagement and collaboration in the atelier “risotto of wild mushrooms”; Marta Laranjeira—teacher of ballet—the engagement in the creative dance; and Mário Montenegro—theatre Marionet—the support in the programme meetings.
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Miranda, J. et al. (2016). Interdisciplinary and Participatory Research at Early Childhood to Biodiversity Education and Sustainable Development. In: Castro, P., Azeiteiro, U., Bacelar-Nicolau, P., Leal Filho, W., Azul, A. (eds) Biodiversity and Education for Sustainable Development . World Sustainability Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32318-3_17
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