Animal welfare: Concepts beyond the borders of the university for children's schools

Over the years, the production chain has become increasingly attentive to the changes and demands of the consumer public, requiring cultural adaptations and facing global challenges in terms of the welfare of production animals. In this context, the aim of this study was to assess the impact of including pedagogical practices on the subject of "animal welfare" in the learning process of elementary school children in public and private schools. In the process, the aim was to investigate how new perspectives on food production influence the critical thinking of students and, indirectly, the community through their parents. The research was carried out with 120 children in the fourth year of elementary school at two schools, E.E. Honorato Faustino (a public school) and Colégio Luiz de Queiroz (CLQ) (a private school), and their respective guardians. The project consisted of three main actions connecting the university, the school and the community: the construction of teaching material on good management practices for farm animals; the application of the material prepared in the volunteer schools; and the presentation of socioemotional questionnaires to assess the assimilation of the content. As secondary results, the animal protein consumption behavior of the children's guardians was also analyzed through questionnaires. After the dynamics, in both schools, the results identified significant discernment on the part of the children in relation to the subject, demonstrating the effectiveness of the training and the independent relationship between assimilation and type of education (public or private). The decision tree of public and private school students before and after AW training revealed that of the seven variables under study, only the variable "Do you know what the 5 degrees of freedom of AW are" separated the students according to training, regardless of the type of school. Through this research, it can be concluded that consumers still often do not consider the origin and method of production at the time of purchase, so work such as this reflects the importance and effectiveness of raising awareness among future consumers from an early age.