Air quality with Tradescantia pallida biomonitoring as a tool in environmental environmental education

Abstract

Environmental education has been introduced as a new dimension to be incorporated into the educational process. The assessment of air quality using plants bioindicators is a technique widespread mainly in European countries, because the vegetable organisms respond to environmental pollution by alterations of their functions or accumulating toxins. The Tradescantia pallida, commonly known as purple spiderwort, is a very common species, easily found in gardens and flower beds in various cities being widely used in biomonitoring of air quality. This study aimed to use the technique of biological monitoring of air quality with T. pallida in order to assist in the teaching of environmental education. Given this work was to evaluate the efficacy of the technique with high school students from a school located in the city of Teresina/PI, promoting greater interaction of the students with the environment, thus analyzing the physiological responses of the plant (T. pallida) through demonstrations of foliar injury, such as: changes in organ and cell size (number of cells of the hair stem that lost color, the shape, size and color of the anthers of the pollen grains and stomata), and thus facilitate the teaching of environmental education. The application of the technique of biomonitoring in this institution contributed 100% so that students understand and visualize the effects and consequences of air pollution for the plants, as well as providing a discussion and reflection on the subject.