Nature photography and its influences in children's conceptions about animal rights

• Grant number: 18/01574-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: May 01, 2018
• End date: December 27, 2020
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Education
• Principal Investigator: Luís Paulo de Carvalho Piassi
• Grantee: Mariah Boratto Peixoto dos Santos
• Host Institution: Escola de Artes, Ciências e Humanidades (EACH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 19/24811-4 - Analyzing science diffusion activities through the lenses of critical animal studies (CAS), critical animal pedagogy (CAP) and posthumanist theory, BE.EP.IC

Abstract

Aiming to comprehend the effectiveness of using nature photographs with children to trigger reflections about animal rights, the present project proposes the use of pictures of Panthera onca during the interventions of science outreach/sociocientific activism (REIS, 2013) made by the research group named D.I.A.N. - Debates and Investigations about Animals and Nature -, part of the research project "Banca da Ciência" (Piassi et al 2017). The photos to be used will be analyzed through concepts taken from semiotics and semisimbolism aiming to identify possible visual comprehensions and semantical associations made over the figure of the jaguar in different contexts, evaluating if, and how, the genre "nature photography" enable approaching themes such as deforestation, agricultural frontiers, extinction, zoo and others with children. Considering the adequacy of the use of images by aspects that refers to the children development, in accordance with authors like Hayes and Kelly (1984), and by visual education in a broad sense, as we can see in Sontag (2004), Colombini (2009) and Oliveira Jr. (2011), activities that blend playfulness with reflectiveness will be formulated to children in the age between 3 and 5 years old (public school students from peripheral neighborhoods in São Paulo) seeking the diffusion of ethical reflections about animal rights since the early childhood. (AU)