Você tem saudade da natureza: conexão de crianças entre 8 e 11 anos com o meio natural durante a pandemia de COVID -19 na Costa do Descobrimento, Sul da Bahia

Abstract

Themes related to nature, currently, rise discussions in civil society, in scientific institutions and even in the political sphere. In this, the connection to nature has been studied seeking to understand and explain the relationship between human beings and the natural environment, as well as what benefits and impacts such a relationship can bring to both. The connection to nature is understood as the means by which the individual includes nature in his cognitive representation of the self, based on biospheric, altruistic or selfish values. From another perspective, it happens through affective and individual experience, or even through cognitive, emotional and physical/experiential aspects. This work investigated the connection to nature, of 8–11 years aged children, during the COVID–19 pandemic in Costa do Descobrimento, southern Bahia, as well as these children's perception of nature from the elements they consider as part of nature. This is a mixed method research, with a concomitant triangulation strategy. To collect the data, an online questionnaire was administered, which included socioeconomic questions, a section about the connection to nature and another one about the influence of the pandemic on this connection. The data collection was complemented with telephone interviews, with seven questions to better understand the connection to nature. We used descriptive statistics and word cloud to analyze the data from the online questionnaire (n = 55) and the Discourse of the Collective Subject (DCS) approach for interview data (n = 21). The word árvores (n = 26; 15.75%) was the word most remembered by children when they think about nature. Of the things they like most about nature, the word animais was the most cited (n = 32; 19.39%). On spending time in nature, children demonstrated positive affect descriptors such as cheerful, excited, fun, interested, satisfied, courageous. In DCSs, the central idea (IC)“Having contact with nature” (n = 13; 61.90%) was expressive. Word clouds show that children relate nature primarily to biotic elements, such as animals and plants. The research demonstrated that children have missing the contact to nature during the pandemic. We inferred that the connection to nature is present, as positive feelings towards nature predominated. This connection takes place through affective, cognitive and experiential dimensions. Altruistic and biospheric environmental values were shown to be present in this connection