Knowledge about exotic species in the formal education sphere in Argentina.

CAMPOS, C. M.; GONZALO BERMUDEZ; GABRIELA DIAZ; ALFREDO VILCHES

Introduced Invasive Mammals of Argentina

Sociedad Argentina para el Estudio de los Mamíferos

Lugar: Buenos Aires; Año: 2022; p. 173 - 192

Education about exotic species is an essential support in controlling and managing biological invasions and has become part of the knowledge a scientifically literate citizen should have. Scientific knowledge is converted into knowledge to be taught, stated in official curricula, documents and programs, and presented in school textbooks. Knowledge to be taught is again adapted to arrive in classrooms as knowledge actually taught, resulting from an interaction among knowledge, teachers and students. Here, we analyze how the topic is approached in curriculum documents and textbooks, and the views and conceptualizations of teachers and students, laying emphasis on the teaching of exotic species as a problem. In curriculum documents, biological invasions are only mentioned as contents in one grade of education; however, many contents related to ecosystem dynamics and biodiversity conservation offer the opportunity to study exotic species in the last cycle of elementary education and across secondary school. The variety of terms used in school textbooks to define invasions and exotic species calls into question that a coherent conceptualization can be reached with reference scientific knowledge. The examples offered by textbooks, not always accompanied by images, include several species, among which exotic mammals stand out. Teachers are encouraged to use ecology books for university students, scientific articles and diffusion notes to concretize the didactic transposition in their science classes. Regarding students´ familiarity with animals, our studies show that, overall, students are more familiar with exotic domestic and charismatic mammals than with native species, many of them even assume that those mammals are native. Students of the last years of secondary school, instead, can name more native species. As a recommendation for their teaching practice, we invite teachers to make decisions about the contents in curricula and school textbooks, considering that science is dynamic and knowledge is in constant construction.