How to protect what we do not know? Prior knowledge about fungi in two levels of education in Brazil

• In Event: Poster session 2

Proposal

Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 15 (Life on Land), adopted by the United Nations in 2015 regards protection, restoration and promotion of sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, forest management, combating desertification, halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss (United Nations, 2015). Fungi, a group of organisms of ecological and economic importance has often been neglected in global conservation initiatives (Willis, 2018). Fungi represent one of the most diverse group of living organisms with ca. 144,000 known species, which represent only 3.7–6.5% of the latest best estimate (Hawksworth & Lucking, 2017; Willis, 2018). In addition to the lack of inclusion of fungi in global conservation initiatives, teaching and learning about fungi deserves further investigation as we cannot protect what we do not know. Brazilians are considered a non-mycophilous people due to lack of fungi as part of culture, beliefs, medicine, and food (Fidalgo, 1968), and this absence is also observed in formal education. In High School, only a few hours are reserved for teaching about fungi; while in undergraduate studies in Biology, few courses have a specific subject on mycology. In this study, our aim was to identify and explore what prior knowledges about fungi students bring to the classroom in two different settings: a Mycology class on a third-year Biology undergraduate course (22 students); and a senior High School class for adults (25 students). On the first class about fungi, students were requested to write down the most meaningful word they had in mind about fungi. The words provided by the students were coded in nine categories (Lasswell, 1949; Bardin, 1977): biology, common names, ecology, food and food industry, health, morphology, reproduction, other organisms, others. For the Senior High School class, results were majoritarily food and food industry (7 words) followed by health (6), common names (5), ecology (2), other organisms (2), morphology (1), biology (1), others (1). For the undergraduate class, results were majoritarily common names (13), then morphology (3), others (2), reproduction (2), health (1), food and food industry (1). Results show that this formative pre-assessment was important to grasp students’ experiences and knowledge about fungi in both settings, to serve as measures to assist the teacher in the creation of lessons (Driver, 1994); and to spike students’ interest and value their previous practical and academic knowledge on the subject. Valuing students’ knowledge and involving them in assessing and designing the curriculum has proven to be a valuable tool in increasing class engagement in comparison to previous years in both settings. Moving forward our hope is to foster the learning process about fungi and inspire students to engage in interacting with fungi on their daily lives. Thus, by acquiring knowledge and fostering sustainable attitudes in the classroom we strive to contribute to SDG 15 goal of conservation and remediation of loss of biodiversity because we need to know in order to protect.

Authors

• Nelson Menolli Junior, Instituto Federal de Ciencia e Tecnologia de Sao Paulo

• Esther do Lago e Pretti, Arizona State University

• Cibele Bender Raio, Universidade Estadual do Norte do Paraná