Investigação da fauna urbana do município de Armação dos Búzios com alunos do Ensino Médio: um folder para identificação

Abstract

Science plays an important role in the development of society. Sciences, including biology, are essential for communities, empowering people to address everyday situations and understand their role in society. The investigative process in this sense is fundamental in the training of students, enabling them to reflect on their knowledge collectively and actively, as protagonists in the teaching-learning process. The main objective of this work is to develop an investigative activity of Citizen Science and a brochure with high school students through a didactic activity to identify the urban fauna of Armação de Búzios, State of Rio de Janeiro. The school where the work was carried out is in an Atlantic Forest region, close to the ocean, lagoons and mangroves. Based on the students' prior knowledge, greater emphasis was placed on concepts that required further clarification through the proposed investigative teaching, promoting citizen science and knowledge of local biodiversity. It was proposed that students take photographic records and observations of animals around their homes, which were identified with the help of bibliography and the iNaturalist platform. The platform functions as a collaborative community of naturalist observations primarily through images, where professionals and amateurs contribute data and identifications. After the fauna survey was carried out, a brochure and a guide with a dichotomous key for identifying the organisms found were produced, along with an explanatory scheme for high school students to use the key. The activity carried out generated curiosities and questions that were discussed in the classroom. The use of the iNaturalist platform for identifying photographed animals as a tool for citizen science is a strategy to promote meaningful learning, student engagement with nature and the development of scientific skills. Through this tool, students had the opportunity to become protagonists in the construction of knowledge, contributing to scientific research and environmental conservation.