The importance of bees for the biodiversity in perception of the students from Cáceres, MT

Abstract

Bees are important pollinators and therefore fundamental to the maintenance of biodiversity. However, a number of anthropogenic changes to the environment have caused a collapse of bees. This study aimed of evaluating the environmental perception of elementary school students of a large public school from Cáceres on the importance of bees for biodiversity, based o the contents of the textbook. The textbook was evaluated by the qualitative method of content analysis. The qualitative and quantitative research was developed through action research: a structured questionnaire was administered to students before and after an environmental awareness activity. The result was that textbooks did not clearly address the role of bees in maintaining biodiversity and the causes and consequences of their collapse. After an environmental awareness an improvement in the perception of students about the importance of bees was noted. Therefore, the activity of environmental education, using concrete elements, contributed to the complementation of the textbook contents on the bees and with the construction of the critical environmental perception of students about the importance of bees to biodiversity.