Valuing And Preserving Natural Heritage Exploring Invasive Species

The introduction of exotic species represent a serious threat to biodiversity, these species have caused the greatest impact on ecosystems. Therefore, is important to encourage citizens to understand the impacts of the introduction of these species on indigenous biodiversity and people's well-being and to develop knowledge, attitudes, and behavior that will help them to reduce this problem. This is a societal problem that is fundamental to be solved through science education, exploring it in the classroom can contribute to work on various aspects of student's scientific literacy in a Science, Technology, and Society approach. However, there are few studies focus on the ability of elementary school students to understand the impacts of the introduction of exotic species. This work evaluates the impact of a didactic sequence i) on the recognition of the danger of introducing exotic species and ii) on predicting its invasive potential. This didactic sequence was applied in two classes of the 3rd grade. Pre and post-tests were used to evaluate the results of this intervention. The results suggest that this didactic sequence contributes to the recognition of the dangers of the introduction of exotic species.