BIRD WATCHING AS A STRATEGY OF

ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION

Ana Sofia Sousa* ; Mário Jorge Freitas**

Summary

In this paper there are some data relating to an experimental study carried out with pupils in the 7th and 8th form, from a school in the North of Portugal. This study is part of a research project centred on bird watching used as a strategy of Environmental Education. It also presents some of the results of a questionnaire, which collected information about the previous contents and about the intuitive methodologies of observation and identification used by the pupils.

Specifically, it refers to interest of pupils on the bird watching, but also to the time and place of such observations, to the characteristics they bear in mind when observing a bird, the most common birds in the region, and so on.

Based on this information, and also in some fieldwork made in a protected area from the North of Portugal (Área de Paisagem Protegida do Litoral de Esposende – APPLE) we intend to prepare a pedagogical guide on the identification of birds. We also want to test it in order to promote bird watching as a strategy of Environmental Education (EE).

Key-words: Environmental Education, bird watching, fieldwork, birds, outdoor education, pupils, morphological characteristics, habits, identification cards, silhouette.

Résumé

Dans cet article nous pouvons rencontré ses donnés relatifs á un étude expérimental réalisé avec des élèves du 7éme et 8éme année dans une école au Nord de Portugal, et qui fait partie dún travaille d’investigation plus vaste centré dans l'observation des oiseaux comme une stratégie d’Education Environnementale (E.E.). Quelques résultats sont présentés de l’application d’un questionnaire élaboré pour la recherche d’information sur les conténus préalables et méthodologies intuitives d’observation et identification observation pour les élèves.

Plus concrètement on fait référence au plus grand ou plus petit intérêt des élèves par l’observation des oiseaux, lieux et moments dans lesquelles cet observation est faite, les aspects qu’ils utilisent pour l’identification d’un oiseaux, les plus fréquents dans la région qu’ils connaissent, etc..

Ayant comme support de cet information et aussi des études de lieu réalisé dans Área de Paisagem Protegida do Litoral de Esposende - A.P.P.L.E. nous avons á l’intention de réaliser et tester un Guide Pédagogique et Identification des Oiseaux Qui facilite le recours á cette stratégie de façon á développer la E.E..

Mots-clés: Education Environnementale, observation des oiseaux, études de lieu, oiseaux, élèves, caractéristiques morphologiques, habitude, fiche de identification, silhouette.

*Ana Sofia R. Lobato de Sousa, Ordem dos Biólogos, Apartado 1148, 4710 Braga Codex, Portugal. email: lobatos@megamail.pt.

** Mário Jorge Freitas, Instituto de Educação e Psicologia, Campus de Gualtar, 4700 Braga, Portugal.

1. Introduction

In the 90’s Environmental Education has taken a more clearly defined stage. Mounting concern over environmental and development problems has meant greater support for an educational approach which not only considers immediate environmental improvement as an actual goal, but which also addresses educating for sustainability in the long term.

For Tilbury (1995)[1] there are three differing approaches to environmental education – education about/ in/ for the environment. Each of these approaches has distinct objectives.

Education about the environment is concerned with developing awareness knowledge and understanding human-environment interactions. This informative approach frequents the science and geography curricula, where the environment becomes a theme of study. Education about the environment is the prevalent form of environmental education in schools.

Education in the environment favours pupil-centred and activity-based learning. This approach usually takes the form of outdoor education. The approach, mostly developed through fieldwork, has a strong experimental orientation, developing environmental awareness and concern by encouraging personal growth through contact with nature.

Education for the environment regards environmental improvement as an actual goal of education and tries to develop a sense of responsibility and active pupils’ participation in the resolution of environmental problems.

We must integrate these three approaches in environmental work. In practice, this will entail ensuring that learning programmes include developing environmental awareness, knowledge, values, concern, responsibility and action.

Many times, when we intend to develop an EE project, the first thing we do is to search a theme, something interesting and motivating for the pupils. Then we try to collect all the information about the problem, its causes, effects, implications and work on it. In these situations, we know almost everything about the problem, but... What about the group we are working with? Do we know what they feel, know and think about the subject...? Anyone, who participates in a program, has some preconceptions that influence their perception and the way they will relate to the apprenticeship process. Pedagogically, a plan that doesn’t consider these previous conceptions is an incomplete plan. Knowledge construction, to be effective, must be based on what the pupils think about the theme, and we must analyse if their ideas are correct or if they contain some misconceptions (Novo, 1996)[2].

With this paper we intend to draw some conclusions which derive from a questionnaire made to students of a secondary school in Esposende – North of Portugal. The questionnaire is part of a study within a broader research work in the Área de Paisagem Protegida do Litoral de Esposende – A.P.P.L.E. (Area of Protected Landscape of Esposende’s Coastal) and it has, among others, the following objectives:

· To collect information about:

- previous knowledge’s and intuitive methodologies, of bird identification and bird-watching by pupils;

- the interest shown for bird watching;

- places and moments in which the observation takes place.

· Complete the information gathered in the fieldwork in order to make a pedagogic guide of local bird identification.

2. A.P.P.L.E.’s localisation and brief characterisation

APPLE was created in 1987 and it is situated in Esposende (North of Portugal), between the village of Apúlia (to the South) and the mouth of Neiva’s river (to the North), in a total extension of 18 Km.

This area has sea beaches, fluvial beaches (Neiva and Cávado), white and grey dunes, the sandbank of the river Cávado, an area of pinewood and arable land. (Maia, 1993)[3]

As far as birds are concerned, APPLE, or more precisely the Cávado river estuary, is considered an important area for the migratory species, as well as for the water birds in general. However, this fauna can be increased through the application of adequate measures, such as actions that may minimise the determining factors of degradation (for example, controlled levels of pollution and the protection of those habitats) and improved action to increase the capacity of favourable homing for water birds in the estuarine area.

The Cávado estuary shelters a large community of water birds, particularly limicolines, with the ringed plover (Charadrius hiaticula) and dunlin (Calidris alpina) being the most representative species. This is an important migratory stage to a great number of birds, especially for ducks and limicolines. The family Laridae outnumbers all the others, and its main representatives are the black-headed gull (Larus ridibundus), the lesser black-becked gull (Larus fuscus) and the herring gull (Larus cachinnans). Passeriformes order is composed of 48 species; 40 of them are nesting species, which clearly accounts for the importance of this area (Correia & Fidalgo, 1995)[4]

3. Methodology

As for our methodology, we had distributed a questionnaire to 233 pupils from a secondary school in Esposende, aged between 12 to 15.

The questionnaire was organised around four aspects:

Interest shown in open air activities and natural space

Identification of birds among other animals

Interest in bird watching; places and time of the year which is done

Identification of the must common birds of the region

Then we made a data treatment in Excel and Access and a qualitative treatment of the open questions.

4. Results

The results of the questionnaire show that:

· Most part of the students like walking, and they usually go on holidays to the seaside. The places they prefer visiting are rivers/lakes, forest and woods, natural parks and reservations.

· The bat is considered as a bird, which is absolutely wrong, by 40% of the questioned pupils, while 33% don’t see the penguin as a bird (Table 1). The general criterion to justify the identification of an animal as a bird is the fact of its being able to fly.

ANIMAL	Correct	Wrong
Snake	219	4
Penguin	149	74
Bat	133	90
Woodpecker	221	2
Owl	221	2
Wolf	219	4
Frog	219	4
Butterfly	175	48

Table 1 - Identification of birds among other animals

· 61% find bird watching interesting, especially due to the beauty of these animals.

· Especially in Spring/Summer, bird watching is something 61,6% of the students often do throughout the whole day; 23% do it in the forest and 21% in other places – at home, for example (Table 2).

PLACE	%
Forest	23,4
Along the river	16,4
Public garden	10,6
Other places in villages and cities	12,2
Beach	13,1
Estuary	3,0
Other places	21,3

Table 2 - Places where pupils do bird watching.

· When they try to identify a bird, the features that were considered more important, were the colour (22%) and beak (20%) – Graphic 1. Aspects like flight, shape or singing are not so important for them.

Graph 1 - Features considered more important for pupils when they try to identify a bird

· 53% of the pupils know seven or more birds in the region (Graph 4). The swallows are the most mentioned birds, then come gulls and black birds.

· In the last part of the questionnaire, the pupils had 8 identification cards where they put the bird’s common name, the scientific name – Latin name (if they knew it). Then they identified the bird by its silhouette. If the pupils knew other characteristics (morphological or habits) they could write that information. (List 1). Here we can see that, regarding wild birds observable in the region, the great majority of the students didn’t know the bird’s Latin name (only one pupil knew the name of 4 species), 47% didn’t identify correctly the bird’s silhouette, and 67% had added other morphological characteristics, like the beak’s or feathers’ colour. As for habits, pupils mentioned, for example, that we could only see swallows in Spring and Summer.

· Some pupils also mentioned some wild birds that can’t be observed in the region, for example the ostrich (List 2) and some domestic birds like the hen or turkey (List 3).

Graphic 2 - Birds that pupils know in the region.

List 1- Wild birds observable in the region

Common name	Number	Scientific name		Silhouette		Other characteristics
		Don't know	Know	Correct	Not correct	Know	Don't know
Eagle	55	55	0	49	6	39	16
Wagtail	2	2	0	0	2	1	1
Swallow	174	173	1	48	126	127	47
Tern	1	1	0	1	0	1	0
Bico de Lacre	7	7	0	1	6	5	2
Wren	2	2	0	0	2	1	1
Serin	3	3	0	2	1	2	1
Tit	1	1	0	0	1	1	0
Great tit	2	2	0	0	2	1	1
Rock bunting	1	1	0	0	1	1	0
Quail	2	2	0	0	2	1	1
Barn owl	26	26	0	23	3	18	8
Raven	73	73	0	64	9	47	26
Cormorant	7	7	0	4