Cerrado Trail: Exploring Native Food Plants at Darthesy Novaes Caminha Public School

Abstract

This work was developed by a team of researchers from Sabores Project in partnership with teachers and students from Escola Municipal Darthesy Novaes Caminha (EMDNC), a public school in Campo Grande, Brazil. During the second half of 2019, a undergraduate Biological Sciences student from UFMS and collaborator of Sabores Project held a workshop at the EMDNC collecting, identifying and herborizing native plants from a Cerrado area at the school backyard, aiming to develop an ecological trail for educational purposes. Due to the pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19), activities were suspended in 2020. From August to November 2021, in-person visits were held to elaborate the list of identified species, which constituted 17 species of angiosperms, 9 of them being edible. Signs were crafted by the Rotary Foundation and donated to the school, containing scientific names of identified species on a trail that the school team called the “Knowledge Trail”. The trail provided an opportunity to discuss the sustainable use of Cerrado flora for food purposes and the strengthening of the associated agroecological system. Following this activity, other workshops on native edible plants have been developed annually at the School by the Sabores Project team and the trail has been explored for teaching activities at the school.