New Perspectives in Science Education

Edition 13

Accepted Abstracts

Tweet Tweet Attracting Birds to the Garden! - Children’s Learning in Host Institution

Rute Monteiro, ESEC University of Algarve (Portugal)

Teresa Cavaco, ESEC University of Algarve (Portugal)

Abstract

Recent investigations have revealed the role of emotions in the learning of the children or young people when interacting with animals, like dolphins or crocodiles, or with the mediators of the learning processes (Monteiro & Reis, 2017, 2018). The authors of this work, periodically implement science education activities with the use of different animals (insects, birds) in a host institution, on a voluntary basis. However, to promote the required children learning and to fill in the living gaps of these institutionalized children, it is not enough to carry out science activities that put them in contact with animals. In a first phase, it is necessary to identify these gaps. For instance, these children do not own a pet. Also, in the course of dialogues with the group of children, with ages of 4-5 years old, most of them reported being afraid of insects, birds and even pets, exhibiting physical manifestations, significant emotions. This happens even though educators have recognized that some of them have never interacted with nonhuman animals because they have been institutionalized since birth. In this sense, an activity was designed and implemented that we called "Attracting birds to the garden" of the host institution. In a first phase, we talked with the children in order to be attentive to the characteristics of the birds: the shape of the beak, the colors, the sexual dimorphism, through photos of birds. In parallel, for fifteen days, children built drinking fountains, reusable feeders and small baskets, so that the birds could build their nests. Somehow, the materials that mimicked the environment, were more easily able to attract the birds that passed by. The bird platforms were placed so that they were visible from both the garden and the dining room, to enable an easy observation of the birds. We also delivered a set of plastic cards, with photographs of various birds that facilitated their recognition. In this paper we describe these activities that provide moments of cognitive, emotional and sensorial learning, in an attempt to develop the human through the nonhuman.

Keywords: Animal, Children, Learning;

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