Environment mental representation: a study with children 8-9 years old

When thinking and representing environment (Mainardi Peron & Falchero, 1994; Axia, 1986; Bruner, 1996), human mind involves perceptive and cognitive (Piaget, 1926; Piaget & Inhelder 1966a/b) as well as social and cultural processes (Moscovici, 2005) that guide and orient human behavior and actions. The aim of this research is to collect, analyze and describe conceptions about environment that children possess. The sample is composed by children between 8 and 9 years old. The data were collected using both cognitive maps (Giglioli & Collinassi, 2011) and drawings (Cannoni, 2003; Pinto, 2002, 1995; Bombi & Pinto, 1993). Only the contemporaneous presence of physical, biological and social elements ensures an envision of environment as a complex system (Bonnes, Bonaiuto & Lee, 2004; Bronfenbrenner, 1979). The research indicates that children, even in primary schools, sometimes have a partial representation of environment. This is important to know for educators and teachers, in order to support a representation of environment as a whole, in which systematic and reciprocal interactions of different elements happen at different levels. This is one of the emerging tasks in environmental education processes all over the world.