Public perception as an instrument of environmental education: A study on microplastics

• Autor(a) principal: Pereira, Maria Lídia Oliveira Valim Coutinho
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Outros Autores: Fragel-Madeira, Lucianne, Santos, Rafael Ferreira dos, Souza, Thais Varandas de Azeredo, Alves, Gustavo Henrique Varela Saturnino
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Research, Society and Development
• Texto Completo: https://rsdjournal.org/index.php/rsd/article/view/15411
• topic: Lixo marinho; Divulgação científica; Percepção ambiental.; Residuos marinos; Divulgación científica; Percepción ambiental.; Marine waste; Scientific dissemination; Environmental perception.

The objective of this work was to evaluate the environmental perception in relation to microplastics of the inhabitants of different cities in the state of Rio de Janeiro. The research was carried out during the exhibitions of the traveling science center Sciences Under Tents at the National Week of Science and Technology of 2019, in the cities of Niterói, Três Rios and Comendador Levy Gasparian,. The data were collected using a “Google Forms” with ten closed questions. In total, 150 responses were collected in Niterói, 114 in Três Rios and 29 in Comendador Levy Gasparian. When asked if they knew the term “microplastic”, in general, 77% of people answered “NO” and only 23% had heard of this term. Among the positive answers 84% of the people were from Niterói, were in high school or higher and obtained information through the internet or school environment. Therefore, it is observed that the most determining factor is education, despite this, the majority of this public does not recycle their garbage and does not even know how plastics decompose in nature. As a way of presenting and publicizing microplastics as polluting agents of the environment, at the end of the questionnaire, the visitor was invited to participate in the activity “Discovering Microplastics”. The developed activity facilitated the awareness and didactic transposition about microplastics in a contextualized way with the reality of the participants. Thus, scientific dissemination can be an excellent tool to stimulate reflections and change habits, especially regarding waste and its disposal.