Browsing by Author "Piasentin, Flora Bonazzi"
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- Ask a Scientist : using place-based mobile learning to promote adolescents’ interest in naturePublication . Silva, Alexandra R.; Gabriel, Rosalina; Arroz, Ana Moura; Sousa, Daniel; Piasentin, Flora Bonazzi; Rosário, Isabel Amorim do; Matos, SóniaQuestioning can be an important instrument to promote students' interest in nature. In this study, based on questions from local adolescents about nature, we designed mobile learning materials focused on local nature-rich environments in the form of podcast episodes and tested them, in a quasi-experimental design, with a new group of adolescents to assess their efficacy in promoting participants’ curiosity about nature. Contributions of this study include insights for future research on technological nature and adolescents' interaction with nature and educational developments related to place-based learning for nature conservation.
- The Field Guide app : Connecting island communities to local conservation through mobile interactionPublication . Sousa, Daniel; Rocha Silva, Alexandra Filipa; Rosário, Isabel Amorim do; Ashby, Simone; Arroz, Ana Moura; Piasentin, Flora Bonazzi; Gabriel, Rosalina; Matos, SóniaHere we present Field Guide, a mobile application (app) designed to connect communities to nature-rich environments, which play a crucial role in nature conservation efforts. The app aligns to a mode of science communication that seeks to establish direct contact between publics and specialised scientific communities, most commonly known as the ’ask a scientist’ approach. Field Guide uses a geolocation positioning system to offer users the opportunity to pose questions to scientists whilst exploring a nature conservation site. In this demo, we display the app as a mock-up presentation before its first use by children and teenagers during afield-trip to a nature trail later in 2021.
- What Is Most Desirable for Nature? An Analysis of Azorean Pupils’ Biodiversity Perspectives When Deciding on Ecological ScenariosPublication . Piasentin, Flora Bonazzi; Gabriel, Rosalina; Arroz, Ana Moura; Silva, Alexandra R.; Amorim, Isabel R.Understanding pupils’ biodiversity perspectives is essential to developing educators’ sensitivity to students’ multi-faceted views of the world, thus increasing teaching effectiveness. In this study, we asked 1528 school pupils in the Azores to choose between alternative schemes in three ecological scenarios and to justify their decisions. The study’s objectives were to understand biodiversity perspectives underlying pupils’ choice of the most desirable schemes for nature and to examine whether gender and school level (middle school/high school) influenced their choices. Quantitative (frequency analysis and Chi-square statistics) and qualitative (thematic analysis) methods were applied for data analysis. The majority of pupils made appropriate choices, arguing from different biodiversity perspectives, which were classified in 10 categories and 24 subcategories. High school pupils did not exhibit significant differences among the main arguments employed, and mostly referred to ecological concepts, while middle school pupils exhibited different choices according to gender, emphasizing richness over the threats posed by introduced species. Biodiversity education should thus be strengthened, especially at the middle school level, where different complex issues would benefit from classroom discussion and systematization. The chosen methodological strategy proved to be effective in assessing pupils’ biodiversity perspectives, which may be useful to deal with other ill-structured problems.