Investigating Brazilian children’s concept of insect

Brazil/U.K.)
Research questions: Children 4, 5, 6 year olds attending public schools in northwestern Brazil were asked to draw on a sheet of blank paper a representation of what “insect” meant to them. Later they were interviewed to spontaneously say the name of as many insects they know, where they found out or saw them everyday at school or “around” and their sources of knowledge. Drawings analyses show salient features mainly wings, antennae, legs and elongated body. The youngest children drew fewer species and some older also drew non-insect invertebrates. A few children reproduced human faces on their specimens, and recalled few names of insects. The most mentioned were butterfly, bee, beetle and surprisingly caterpillar. Children reported home, family and friends observation as the more numerous source of knowledge, less school although garden and farm visits were featured. Media was the least cited source of knowledge and the most often cited was real life. Therefore, learning about insects endemic to the country where pupils live is part of their learning about science in the everyday world.
Principal researchers: Amauri Bartoszeck, Univ. of Paraná, Brazil; Bernadete R. da Silva, Rio Branco, Brazil; Sue Dale Tunnicliffe, Univ. of London, UK.
Time span: Start mid -2008, hope to finish end of 2009