Cultural probes for environmental education: Designing learning materials to engage children and teenagers with local biodiversity

With the support of 10 adult volunteers during both visits, we welcomed participants to the starting point where they established themselves into groups of two or three members. We fol- lowed with an explanation of the activity. Group members were encouraged to adopt different Table 2. Station titles and their corresponding activities. Station 1. Take a break. Before we start our walk, close your eyes for a moment and then write the words that come to mind. Station 2. The mystery of water. Squeeze these two plants (moss and Japanese cedar) and measure the resulting volume of water. Observe the differences. Station 3. The smells of the forest. Identify as many smells as you can. Indicate the ones you dislike as well as the ones you like the most. Station 4. Help the forest. This plant is one of the invasive species that takes up most space from the original plants of the Azores. You can help control this problem by pulling out a plant or, by removing all the leaves. Station 5. Create your park. Use the cord provided in your pack to delimit an area (‘reserve’) that contains what you think is most important to keep. Photograph your ‘reserve’, give it a name, and record the time when the corresponding photo was taken. Station 6. Who lives here? Select the three species that you consider to be most characteristic of this site and photograph them. Discuss the reasons why you chose these species and what you know, or would like to know, about each one. Station 7. Where am I? Discuss and record your answer.

Station 8. Touch and feel. Describe everything you feel as you touch mosses, ferns, and tree trunks. Station 9. Manager for 10 min. Identify 4 elements that exist in this lagoon. Of those that do not exist, choose the ones you would like to see here while referring to what would change with their introduction to the lagoon. Station 10. Where are the animals? Look for animals on various substrates: air, water, soil, bark, etc. List them and quantify them. Station 11. Hear the Forest. Be silent until you hear the bell and make a list of the sounds you identified. List: (1) what you heard; (2) what you heard and were not expecting to hear; (3) what you were waiting to hear and did not hear. Now read the poem below by Alberto Caeiro (here translated by the leading author from the original version in Portuguese): That lady has a piano Which is nice but it’s not the running of rivers Nor the murmur the trees make. . . What do you need a piano for? It’s best to have ears And love nature. Station 12. Lime-Green-Bud-Green. Take photographs of the different shades of green you see here. Now imagine what this landscape would look like without some of these shades. What if you could only see one shade of green here? Discuss these questions. Station 13. Travel in time. Imagine going back 250 years in time. You are in the year 1769, eight years after the eruption of Miste´rios Negros in 1761. Describe what was here at the time. Now travel 250 years into the future. You are in the year 2269. Describe what you see.

Station 14. Close your eyes. We have reached the end of our walk. Once again, close your eyes for a moment and then write the words that come to mind. . . https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262853.t002 Table 3. Content-free questions. 1. Describe . . . in your own words. 2. What does . . . mean? 3. Why is . . . important? 4. Explain why . . . 5. Explain how . . . 6. How are . . .. and . . .. similar? 7. ’’How do. . . and. . . differ?’’. 8. How could . . . be used to . . .? 9. What would happen if . . .? https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262853.t003 PLOS ONE Cultural probes for environmental education PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262853 February 10, 2022 13 / 30