Natural partners: a didactic proposal to understand the relevance of the mutualistic flower-pollinator interaction

Abstract

Pollination by animals is a key process involved in flowering plants reproduction. In the educational context, this topic is rarely addressed from the plant-pollinator interaction point of view, and its importance is poorly recognized by the students. Here we present a didactic proposal developed to address the sexual reproduction in plants, based on the plant-pollinator mutualistic association. The sequence of activities developed includes the display of a video, observation and handling of flowers and fruits, as well as play activities where the pollination process and the correspondence between certain flower traits and pollinators are represented. The set of questions applied suggests a change or improvement in students knowledge about the contents after the activities.