Four to twelve year-old socially vulnerable children and pre-adolescents of a private entity in Rio de Janeiro City have been studied in relation to their environmental perception and social representations regarding the environment. Social representations have been obtained from drawings and categorized. The macro-elements were classified as: a) abstract or concrete; b) artificial or natural. The macro elements were classified into: a) house or objects in general; b) animal, plant, mineral, atmospheric and human resources. Animals were predominant (40%) in natural environments. Flying animals (58%), trees without fruits or flowers (70%), grass (36%), sun (54%) and the masculine gender (27%) were the predominant macro-elements. The results show that concrete (94%) and natural (75%) elements predominated, suggesting that the perceived environment is that which is essentially visualized.
Environmental education; Nature; Society; Drawing; Perception; Social representation
