Ensino de plantas medicinais: conhecimento etnobotânico de alunos de uma escola pública no Município de Acari-RN e a construção de um herbário escolar.

Abstract

Among the constituents of the rich biodiversity presented by Brazil are medicinal plants, which have been used by humankind since antiquity as an alternative in curing countless evils, so it is necessary for the school to invest in motivational pedagogical practices on this theme, with the intention of instigating the students to develop a more significant vision for the teaching of botany. Thus, the present study aimed to investigate the ethnobotanical knowledge on medicinal plants of the students of the 2nd year of high school of E.E.E.F.M. Dr. José Gonçalves de Medeiros, located in the municipality of Acari, Seridó in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, as well as develop pedagogical strategies in teaching botany through the creation of a school herbarium. For that, a qualitative and quantitative approach was used, with a descriptive character for the accomplishment of this research, in which it was developed in six stages: 1) Visit to the school community, in order to obtain the authorization of the research and the activities planning ; 2) Application of a previous questionnaire about the subject matter, containing objective and subjective questions; 3) Conducting an informative talk; 4) Construction of a school herbarium by students; 5) Shows the activities developed, through an exhibition in the school community; 6) Application of a post-intervention questionnaire. Before the analysis of the results, it is possible to do from the basics as a database for the children to make a request for medical participation, which serves as a subsidy for a lecture on the subject, highlighting their participation and attention of the same with the information and, through it, were motivated to carry out future actions. Continuing with the production of the exsicatas, which were followed by the sample of the didactic collections for the school community, the students reported a step-by-step preparation to compose the school herbarium. Finally, a post-intervention questionnaire was applied, where the results varied between almost satisfied and totally satisfied by the action performed. It was verified, therefore, that the activities directed to the ethnobotanical knowledge about the medicinal plants, provokes the students' interest in knowing more about the vegetal universe, giving its importance, mainly, when pedagogical strategies are used as the herbarium to build bridges between knowledge, contributing and being of great value for the teaching learning of the students.