Abstract:

We have constantly seen a great mobilization in favor of environmental preservation in Brazil, happening in schools, neighborhoods, communities, appearing in the mass media, among others. In addition, more and more studies are taking place regarding the importance of insects in our daily lives. Based on this, the opportunity to work entomology with the group of students of the UEIL (Urban Environment Intelligence Laboratory) at one Municipal School of Elementary Education, located in the Sarandi Neighborhood - Porto Alegre. The proposed activity consisted of creating a didactic entomological collection with the UEIL students, with the purpose of clarifying insects, their importance to the environment, relation with humans, the need to preserve species, the students had. The proposal had two distinct moments: initially the assembly of an explanatory class was held in dialogue with the students, to understand the subject studied, and to learn about the processes of construction of the collection. In a second moment, we had the process of collecting some insects from the plant nursery - a project that has been in school since 2014 and which greatly contributes to the students' environmental awareness - and subsequent assembly of the entomological collection. Such collection allows the knowledge of the diversity of insects present in the nursery, its importance, functions performed in the environment, among others. It is always good to remember that the proposal to build an entomological collection is not to encourage the hunting of these animals, but rather to contemplate a basic sampling of insects present in the environment in which we live, and the amount of individuals collected does not have the capacity to negatively impact in the ecosystem, serving only to awaken in students the awareness of the importance of their preservation and respect for the environment as a whole. In our view, the work accomplished was a great success, so we had the opportunity to expand its scope to the whole school, transforming the didactic entomological collection into a workshop during the 3rd Ecological Week, an event held annually at the school, where themes were approached already described, need for insect preservation, relation with the environment, practical insect identification activities, where the classes participated in a playful game, among others. In this way, we could perceive an increase of interest in the subject, on the part of the students, mainly regarding the preservation of the insects of the school and the community as a whole, besides having the opportunity to know a didactic entomological collection.

Keywords:

Teaching of Sciences, Play Activities, Didactic Entomological Collection.