Visiting a nature park in the Azores prompts adolescents’ biological and ecological questionsThis qualitative study explored what piqued adolescents’ curiosity and interest as they visited a nature park in the Azores archipelago off the coast of Portugal. Researchers asked youth visiting the park to generate their own questions in order to identify aspects of this nature-rich environment that they were inherently curious about and interested in. By investigating adolescents’ self-generated questions, they hoped to answer the following research questions: <em>What insights can we generate from adolescents’ questions about their curiosities regarding nature? Which objects and topics appear most prominently? What knowledge do they seek to acquire? Are there differences between the questions posed by younger and older adolescents?</em> They hoped their findings could help educators and conservationists design activities and place-based educational interventions that could re-connect young people to nature—particularly adolescents, who are often more detached from nature than youth of other ages.
For this Portuguese study, 36 adolescents completed a structured hike through The Nature Park of Terceira, which included a series of stations where small groups of younger adolescents (age 10-14) or older adolescents (age 15-18) completed an engaging, place-based learning task. After each task, researchers asked each group to formulate at least two nature-based questions. Six weeks later, the research team organized a follow up activity at the University of Azores, so the participants could rank order those questions and identify their top 5 questions. The researchers then analyzed the 137 original questions thematically to identify patterns in their objects, aims, and topics. Their analysis also compared the questions generated by younger and older adolescents to determine any age-based differences.
Overall, adolescents’ self-generated questions included nine different objects, 8 different aims, and 14 different topics, indicating their curiosity about nature. The most common objects in their questions were species followed by habitats and nature. For aims, adolescents aimed to know more about casual relationships followed by the nature of things, value of things, impacts, and, lastly, definitions of concepts. The most prevalent topics were biology and ecology. Most biological questions were about species characteristics and plant physiology. Ecological questions emphasized understanding biodiversity dynamics, species adaptation, extinction, dispersion, and diversity. Adolescents were also interested in management of natural resources. The most prevalent age-based difference was that younger adolescents were more interested in conservation and older adolescents more interested in biodiversity dynamics.
Synthetizing their wide-ranging findings, the researchers noted that adolescents generally perceive nature as a system of biotic and abiotic elements with minimal human impact. Their participants found biotic life, such as species, more intriguing than abiotic elements, such as habitats and climate. The study also has implications for practice. Specifically, the research team calls for more educators, conservationists, and researchers to engage adolescents in non-formal, place-based learning activities in nature-rich environments to help them connect with nature.
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