Abstract:

Since 2005, the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) has initiated a project aimed at creating school calendars using drawings from a contest open to Italian primary school children. Every year, schools enthusiastically participate by submitting pupils' drawings on selected Earth science themes. Engaging young children in this project serves two purposes: it brings them closer to science and the natural world, while also providing an opportunity to explore their perspectives on Earth, science, the environment, and sustainable behavior.

For our study, we conducted a preliminary analysis of the children's perceived image of Planet Earth, its sustainability, and its future based on the unique perspective of Italian school drawings, collected for different competitions for the INGV school calendar. The competitions, promoted over a twelve-year span, had a similar and comparable main topic: the 2009 calendar titled "The Earth of tomorrow is in my hands today," the 2010 calendar titled "Precious Earth," and the 2021-2022 calendar titled "A future sized for the Planet." The drawings were categorized, and data values were recorded in three separate data sheets. We designed a classification scheme to synthesize the sets of images and conduct a coarse-grained, quantitative analysis to test and refine the classification scheme and draw meaningful conclusions.

In this study, we present and compare the results from these three datasets to highlight differences, similarities, convergences, and attempt to understand how perceptions of the environmental topic have evolved over time. Moreover, the findings may offer a unique and direct perspective on how we convey the topic of science—a strategic element for a sustainable future of humanity—to the future generations who will play a vital role in shaping our world."

Keywords:

Children's drawings, climate change perception, statistical analysis.