Monitoramento participativo com estudantes de ensino básico em bacias hidrográficas urbanas

Abstract

Disorganized occupation of space has been one of the major contemporary urban problems, especially in large cities. In Latin America, most sources of water destined for human use are located inside or near urban areas. However, most cities are launching untreated sewage in urban rivers, degrading water quality, with negative effects on aquatic biodiversity and ecosystem services, including human supply. The involvement of riverside communities enhances conservation efforts, management and management actions through social participation in the production of scientific knowledge, as practitioners of citizen science. Mobilizing society to monitor the quality of urban watercourses allows diagnosis and facilitates training to discuss the implementation of mitigation and management strategies. Thus, the training of students and their teachers in the participatory monitoring of the ecological evaluation of water quality in urban watersheds is a doubly effective strategy. This thesis aimed to carry out a Participatory Environmental Monitoring Program of urban hydrographic basins with elementary schools in the Velhas and Paraopeba river basins, upper São Francisco River (MG). Chapter 1 presents the results of this monitoring of ecological quality in 46 urban streams with biological and multimetric indexes adapted for application by 155 teachers and 1810 students, from 54 schools in 12 municipalities. In the format of a scientific paper, "Student monitoring of the ecological quality of neotropical urban streams", published in the journal AMBIO, I showed that the results of these evaluations of urban aquatic ecosystems, carried out by basic education students, had a scientifically validated consistency. As a conclusion, it is shown that participatory monitoring in partnership with universities is a viable tool to improve science education, increase social participation and improve the ecosystem services provided by urban watercourses. Chapter 2 is a book, aimed for teachers and students of elementary education, from the 8th year of elementary school and beyond, which can be used as a didactic tool for the evaluation of urban streams. In this chapter I described the experience in citizen science for teachers and students in the development of environmental quality assessment projects and ecological monitoring of water bodies quality in urban areas. Our methodology is applied through assessment of physical habitats, land use, classification of waters based on environmental legislation and a benthic biological index. Our ambition is that this book can also be useful as a support to the National Curricular Common Base of High School, established by the Ministry of Education (Resolution CNE / CP No. 2/2017), with innovative and diversified activities, contributing to the formation of young citizens their professional development. The results of this thesis report a successful experience in citizen science with teachers and students of basic education. The book proposal included theoretical bases and viable methodologies for use in science education, seeking to increase social participation and deepen the discussions for proposing environmental management measures by partner schools.