Ecology and Education in Marine Protected Areas: Insights from Brazil and South America - Earth Stewardship: Linking Ecology and Ethics in Theory and Practice - page 350

Box 23.1. (continued)

7. ecosystem functional interpretation,
8. organism functional interpretation,
9. economic relationships,
10. global environmental changes, and
11. closing.

The sequence is planned to have a transdisciplinary character and to
stimulate participants to later apply learning to their everyday life when they
return home. Following this scheme, seven activities models have been devel-
oped to address the expectations of different public, and to expose visitors to
a variety of ecosystems: (i) Underwater Free Diving Trail (Fig. 23.3 ), (ii)
Underwater Scuba Diving Trail, (iii) Natural Aquarium Trail, (iv) Canoeing
Trail, (v) Outside Water “Panels” Diving Trail (Fig. 23.4 ), (vi) Ecosystems
Trail, and (vii) Vertical Trail. The activities at each of the interpretive trails
last for approximately one hour. The activities, initially targeted to the general
public visiting the MPA, were expanded to elementary and high school local
students. Up to now, a total of 20,351 people have attended the activities,
1,405 of them belonging to public schools.

Fig. 23.3 People participating in Underwater Free Diving Trail

(continued)