Jardim botânico escolar : unidade de conservação e educação

Abstract

School afforestation, due to its multiple advantages, is a strategy that facilitates knowledge of botany for students. And the botanical garden is an instrument that makes it easier for school knowledge to approach significant knowledge in relation to socio-environmental responsibility, in addition to providing the ethnobotanical rescue of traditional knowledge. The present study aimed to build and manage a botanical garden at the José de Mesquita State School, in the city of Cuiabá, MT, to carry out practices related to botany and ethnobotany, reconciling empirical and scientific knowledge, in high school. For the qualitative and quantitative analysis, pre-test techniques were used, semi-structured and open interviews, direct observation, guided tour, field notes and image recording, organized in a data sheet. With regard to the quantitative approach of medicinal plants, this was carried out from the calculations of Level of Loyalty (NF), Correction Factor (FC) and the relative frequency of use of each cited species (Pcusp). Data collection was carried out from November 2021 to July 2022 with 80 people, all family members of the students in 75 homes, covering 09 neighborhoods in the city of Cuiabá. According to the data tabulation, the majority of respondents (86.25%) are female, aged between 61 and 80 years and with incomplete elementary school education. A total of 163 different species of plants cultivated in the interviewees' backyards were registered, distributed in 65 botanical families. The families that presented the greatest representation were: Asteraceae, Lamiaceae and Fabaceae. Of the cited species, 71.00% are exotic and 29.00% native, the most cited ethnocategory were: medicinal (47.00%), food (27.00%), ornamental (20.00%) and other uses (6.00%). Regarding the medicinal ethnocategory, the species that presented the highest percentages of use agreement (Pcusp) with 100.00% was boldo (Plectranthus barbatus Andrews), followed by lemon balm (Melissa officinalis L.) with 73.80%. The botanical garden at the school was implemented with the involvement of the entire school community, in 329 m² 68 seedlings of 53 different species were planted, with the planting of medicinal and fruit species most cited by respondents. The empirical knowledge that the relatives of the students of the school, the target of the study, have about plants, constitutes an ethnobotanical knowledge of essential relevance in the preservation of the culture of the community in relation to the conservation of the flora and the wide use of medicinal plants.