Giocando verso uno sviluppo sostenibile: il contributo della sede INGV di Porto Venere nella realizzazione di giochi didattico-scientifici

In questo articolo descriviamo l’importanza dell’attività ludico-didattica e del linguaggio visivo per facilitare l’apprendimento ed in particolare l’esperienza della sede INGV di Porto Venere all’interno del Gruppo di Lavoro La Spezia Golfo della Scienza [Locritani et al., 2015], nell’ambito dello sviluppo di giochi scientifici. Il gruppo di lavoro ormai da dieci anni collabora nell’organizzazione di eventi di divulgazione con l’obiettivo di accrescere la conoscenza sulle grandi tematiche ambientali per la salvaguardia del Pianeta. Le premesse che sostengono questa strategia hanno radici profonde provenienti da motivazioni politiche, economiche e sociali che sono alla base dello Sviluppo Sostenibile. In ambito Europeo l’educazione allo Sviluppo Sostenibile richiede il coinvolgimento di tutta la popolazione, nonostante queste linee guida i sondaggi dell’Eurobarometro evidenziano un basso interesse nei confronti delle scienze. In questo contesto è importante evidenziare il ruolo della divulgazione scientifica e delle diverse metodologie da impiegare. Nella semplificazione dei concetti svolge un ruolo chiave l’immagine e l’utilizzo di essa nella realizzazione di giochi scientifico-didattici. Nei prossimi paragrafi verranno descritti: il contesto economico, politico e sociale che sostiene l’importanza della divulgazione scientifica; la funzione del linguaggio visivo nella comunicazione scientifica; il ruolo del gioco nell’apprendimento; l’esperienza dell’INGV di Porto Venere all’interno dell’ambito territoriale e scientifico in cui opera; le strategie usate nella fase di progettazione del gioco, i contenuti dei giochi e le modalità stabilite per il loro utilizzo.Published1-262TM. Divulgazione ScientificaN/A or not JC

Feeling the pulse of Public Perception of Science: does Research make our hearts beat faster?

In 2007 the Italian Ministry of Education identified the need of raising a new Humanism: students must receive adequate tools for knowledge, but must also understand and be able to handle the increasingly frequent transitions and changes they have to face as citizens and individuals. Orientation during the developmental phase must, hence, allow students to acquire all those key and context-independent competences, necessary for self-assessment of natural attitudes. Nevertheless, the label “new Humanism”, should not be the first step for giving even less importance to scientific education: there is no need to enhance the existing general lack of interest affecting Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines and literature; moreover, the social importance of scientific and technological research can’t remain undervalued. All these issues are a matter of concern for the European Community and, in fact, the last European Directives concerning education and social development, are trying to redirect and enforce educational programmes towards a “knowledge-based society and economy” that will support the societal challenges of the 21st century and the growing demand of scientific expertise in all sectors (necessary for boosting European economic development). The most interesting strategies for implementing these directives are all those activities that see a wide partnership of schools with public institutions, enterprises and research centres (e.g. science festivals, competitions and internships for high school students). Recent studies, and the same recommendations of the European Community, have also shown that these activities, when included since the earliest years of primary schools, have a deeper impact in the long term as they match with the evolutive period in which intrinsic motivation is strongly present. This study is, hence, aimed to build an instrument able for understanding if all these kind of activities are effective in 2 increasing: (1) appreciation and interest towards scientific research and (2) number of young people considering a STEM career as a possible perspective for their future (the question is: ‘does Science make our hearts beat faster?’)

NEOTROPICAL CARNIVORES: a data set on carnivore distribution in the Neotropics

Mammalian carnivores are considered a key group in maintaining ecological health and can indicate potential ecological integrity in landscapes where they occur. Carnivores also hold high conservation value and their habitat requirements can guide management and conservation plans. The order Carnivora has 84 species from 8 families in the Neotropical region: Canidae; Felidae; Mephitidae; Mustelidae; Otariidae; Phocidae; Procyonidae; and Ursidae. Herein, we include published and unpublished data on native terrestrial Neotropical carnivores (Canidae; Felidae; Mephitidae; Mustelidae; Procyonidae; and Ursidae). NEOTROPICAL CARNIVORES is a publicly available data set that includes 99,605 data entries from 35,511 unique georeferenced coordinates. Detection/non-detection and quantitative data were obtained from 1818 to 2018 by researchers, governmental agencies, non-governmental organizations, and private consultants. Data were collected using several methods including camera trapping, museum collections, roadkill, line transect, and opportunistic records. Literature (peer-reviewed and grey literature) from Portuguese, Spanish and English were incorporated in this compilation. Most of the data set consists of detection data entries (n = 79,343; 79.7%) but also includes non-detection data (n = 20,262; 20.3%). Of those, 43.3% also include count data (n = 43,151). The information available in NEOTROPICAL CARNIVORES will contribute to macroecological, ecological, and conservation questions in multiple spatio-temporal perspectives. As carnivores play key roles in trophic interactions, a better understanding of their distribution and habitat requirements are essential to establish conservation management plans and safeguard the future ecological health of Neotropical ecosystems. Our data paper, combined with other large-scale data sets, has great potential to clarify species distribution and related ecological processes within the Neotropics. There are no copyright restrictions and no restriction for using data from this data paper, as long as the data paper is cited as the source of the information used. We also request that users inform us of how they intend to use the data

NEOTROPICAL ALIEN MAMMALS: a data set of occurrence and abundance of alien mammals in the Neotropics

Biological invasion is one of the main threats to native biodiversity. For a species to become invasive, it must be voluntarily or involuntarily introduced by humans into a nonnative habitat. Mammals were among first taxa to be introduced worldwide for game, meat, and labor, yet the number of species introduced in the Neotropics remains unknown. In this data set, we make available occurrence and abundance data on mammal species that (1) transposed a geographical barrier and (2) were voluntarily or involuntarily introduced by humans into the Neotropics. Our data set is composed of 73,738 historical and current georeferenced records on alien mammal species of which around 96% correspond to occurrence data on 77 species belonging to eight orders and 26 families. Data cover 26 continental countries in the Neotropics, ranging from Mexico and its frontier regions (southern Florida and coastal-central Florida in the southeast United States) to Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, and Uruguay, and the 13 countries of Caribbean islands. Our data set also includes neotropical species (e.g., Callithrix sp., Myocastor coypus, Nasua nasua) considered alien in particular areas of Neotropics. The most numerous species in terms of records are from Bos sp. (n = 37,782), Sus scrofa (n = 6,730), and Canis familiaris (n = 10,084); 17 species were represented by only one record (e.g., Syncerus caffer, Cervus timorensis, Cervus unicolor, Canis latrans). Primates have the highest number of species in the data set (n = 20 species), partly because of uncertainties regarding taxonomic identification of the genera Callithrix, which includes the species Callithrix aurita, Callithrix flaviceps, Callithrix geoffroyi, Callithrix jacchus, Callithrix kuhlii, Callithrix penicillata, and their hybrids. This unique data set will be a valuable source of information on invasion risk assessments, biodiversity redistribution and conservation-related research. There are no copyright restrictions. Please cite this data paper when using the data in publications. We also request that researchers and teachers inform us on how they are using the data