Research on lichens as indicators of pollution and their use in environmental education
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54495/Rev.Cientifica.v7i1.442Keywords:
research, lichens, indicators, pollution, environmental educationAbstract
If you travel through diverse locations, for example, from the industrialized German region to the Swiss Alps or from Mexico City to the Yucatan Peninsula, you can easily observe lichens as indicators of pollution: in areas with clean air, lichens are seen as gray, yellow, brown, white, and green patches on tree trunks. In polluted regions, this is not possible because they no longer exist. It is possible to observe that between the two extremes there are transitional regions. By observing this situation, a judgment can be made about the state of pollution in each region; this judgment is independent of the day on which the observation is made, because lichens are always active and provide an average value of pollution. This "Seeing Through Lichen Eyes" should be part of environmental education so that students can recognize the ecological reality of their community. At the same time, in a project investigating lichens as bioindicators, students also learn the value and limits of scientific research. With this article, we aim to stimulate the use of lichens as bioindicators in Latin America. Two objectives are pursued: 1. To provide guidance to biologists in universities, environmental monitoring agencies, and schools on the basics of lichen bioindication and measurement methods. 2. To demonstrate, using examples from Germany and conducted with teachers in schools, how projects involving lichens can be structured. The first part analyzes the biological basis for the functioning of lichens as bioindicators, comparing the value of bioindication and the results with technical measurements. Methods for measuring lichen pollution are presented below. Finally, projects carried out in schools are presented as a result.
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Copyright (c) 1989 Werner Grüninger, Miriam Velarde
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