UNO Herbarium: actions to bring scientific knowledge and the community closer together Sacha Arielle Branco, Adriano Dias de Oliveira, Eliara Solange Müller, Camila Kissmann

Abstract

Herbaria, scientific record and reference collections, bring together specialists and researchers in the field of botany in the institutions where they occur. There is a constant demand from primary and secondary schools and the general population for up-to-date environmental and scientific education with theoretical robustness. Extension actions represent an opportunity to explain the importance of the collection, research in the botanical area and its contribution to the formation of a society more committed to the conservation of natural resources. The UNO Herbarium (Unochapecó, Chapecó, SC) has carried out actions aimed at different audiences (elementary, high school and general public), organized in lectures, workshops and exhibitions, carried out in schools, public areas such as squares and shopping centers, and in University itself. With this, the Herbarium has contributed to the dissemination, in the region in which it is located, of information about regional biodiversity, forest conservation and the importance of plants, with current content and appropriate language, promoting and popularizing knowledge of botany. In the last three years (2014-2016) the Herbarium developed four main activities that reached more than one thousand and two hundred people.