Banca de DEFESA: ROSIANE ELVINA SOUSA DE ANDRADE

THE SENSORY GARDEN AS A TEACHING TOOL AND THE MITIGATION OF BOTANICAL BLINDNESS

DSG2030; Teaching Botany; Education for sustainability; Non-Formal Teaching Space.

Responsible for the study of plants, Botany is still seen as a discipline with little contextualization and with scarce use of didactic resources such as Non-Formal Teaching Spaces. These notes point to the lack of interest and excitement of students in Botany classes, since the excessive use of traditional methodologies is known, such as theoretical, descriptive classes and the use of technical terms, even leading to the so-called “Plant Blindness”. Faced with this problem, the main objective of this study was to discuss the aspects that involve the use of a Sensory Garden as a didactic tool for Teaching Botany and for mitigating Botanical Blindness in Basic Education students. The research classified as Field, Action-Research and Qualitative, was applied to 34 Basic Education students (Elementary School) in two environments: a Formal Teaching Space and a Non-Formal Teaching Space (Sensory Garden). The development took place in three phases: a) diagnosis (identification of Botanical Blindness); b) SD application phase; and c) evaluation and data analysis phase. It has been verified, so far, that the participants have a certain degree of Botanical Blindness, where about 85% highlight the presence of architectural objects and materials on the drawn path and only approximately 26% perceive the existence of plants on the path in question. The first results are satisfactory for presenting a method used in the identification of Botany Blindness in an efficient way, which adds another tool with real possibilities and perspectives to be used by teachers, enabling new directions for the Teaching of Botany.