Percepción de la naturaleza por niños de contextos urbano y costero: un análisis de dibujos y palabras clave

Abstract

Environmental perception involves many psychosocial dimensions, including cognition and attachment for the environment. This study aims to understand how children between 8 to 12 years old, from urban and coastal contexts, perceive and define nature. Therefore, drawings based on the motivating question: “what is nature for you?” as well as keywords that describe the environment were used as tools, which were analyzed through content analysis. From this analysis, four categories that comprise the contents brought up by the children from both contexts were found: Nature animated elements, Nature inanimate elements, pleasantness and polarities. It was possible to identify a common way of representing nature that seems to have no connection with the closeness to nature at the place of residence. It was also noticed that nature is associated, in general, with positive feelings, well-being and health. These results serve as a starting point or continuing this line of research, implying that children benefit from the contact with nature.