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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
The PREDINATUR project began in 2017 with the purpose of promoting the contact of pupils of
primary school with nature. As a result of an increasingly urban experience and the use of
technological devices in indoor settings, children today are moving away from the natural world.
School can help to counteract this trend by promoting pupils' contact with nature. But with their focus
on learning, teachers do not always have educational resources to promote outdoor activities.
Thus, this project aims to support the visitation of natural areas in Portugal and Spain and to stimulate
similar projects. To this end, a website was created for free dissemination of educational resources.
The first resources were designed by pre service teachers from two higher education institutions,
respectively for Lagoa Pequena, Portugal (Natura 2000 under the Birds and Habitats Directives of
European Union), and for Las Tablas de Daimiel National Park, Spain (a wetland on the La Mancha
plain).
At this stage, the three resources made available online for Lagoa Pequena (a small lagoon that is
included in the Albufeira Lagoon) have already been tested by 16 teachers and 65 pupils of the 6th
grade of schooling (ages 10 to 12) from two different schools. From the results of this assessment, the
user teachers emphasized their integrative character and the use of digital resources as very
motivating for the pupils. However, a few suggested, for instance, the inclusion of more questions
directed to get information from the outdoor panels and the discussion of the more complex activities
at the end of the visit. These and other suggestions will be addressed in the reformulation process of
the resources. The pupils highlighted positively the use of the digital resources and a few criticized the
fact that some activities have a lot of maths included. Some disturbing factors during the visit were
also mentioned, especially by the pupils of one of the schools, like the weather conditions and the
presence of stinging plants and insects, affecting their enjoyment of the place and attention during the
activities.
In the near future, the project intends to design other educational resources for natural areas also
obeying to the cycle of test and reformulation, and to provide the website available in three languages
(Portuguese, Spanish and English), to facilitate the exchange of ideas related to the present issue
among the research community.
Description
Keywords
Contact with nature Educational resources Primary school IPL/2016/PREDINATUR_ESELx
Citation
Almeida, A., Rodrigues, M., & Fernández, B. G. (2017). The PREDINATUR project: Educational resources for promoting pupils’ contact with nature. In Proceedings of ICERI2017 Conference (pp. 1195-1204). Seville: IATED. ISBN: 978-84-697-6957-7.