Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Ethnobotanical Knowledge Acquisition Among Tsimane Children

土著人民的民族植物学知识正在迅速消失。因此，重要的是在这些信息丢失给科学之前将其记录下来。这样的研究有助于确保记录有关植物有用性的信息。它还帮助我们了解更普遍的知识是如何在几代人之间学习和传播的。研究生玛丽亚-露丝·马丁内斯在布伦特·伯林博士的指导下，将对齐马纳人的民族植物学知识进行研究。齐马尼人是生活在玻利维亚亚马孙低地的相对孤立的土著民族。马丁内斯将研究儿童的知识，这一群体在民族植物学研究中经常被忽视。约200名儿童(7-15岁)和他们的父母将被邀请参加，以便她能够调查齐曼儿童的理论和实践民族植物学知识，他们学习的社会和经验背景，以及他们特定的习得模式。研究将采用混合方法，包括参与者观察、自由列出、半结构化访谈、民族植物学收集、民族植物学知识测试和时间分配扫描。被检验的假设是：H1：儿童的S民族植物学知识与同性父母的民族植物学知识呈正相关；H2：儿童的S民族植物学知识与其兄弟姐妹的民族植物学知识呈正相关；H3：儿童与同性父母和兄弟姐妹在一起的时间与儿童的S民族植物学知识呈正相关；H4：父母和兄弟姐妹的民族植物学知识(H1-H2)和与这些数字相处的时间(H3)会对儿童的S民族植物学知识产生正向交互作用；H5：儿童与自然互动的相对时间与儿童的S民族植物学知识呈正相关；H6：儿童时期获得植物知识有一定的模式。这项研究很重要，因为它将有助于了解儿童是如何学习的，它将记录濒危的民族植物学知识，它将有助于制定更好的保存民族植物学知识的战略，它将有助于从代表性不足的群体中教育女性社会科学家。

Ethnobotanical knowledge of indigenous people is fast disappearing. Therefore, it is important to document this information before it is lost to science. Such research helps to ensure that information about plant usefulness is recordetd. It also helps us to understand how knowledge more generally is learned and transmitted over generations. Graduate student Maria-Ruth Martinez, supervised by Dr. Brent Berlin, will undertake research on the ethnobotanical knowledge of the Tsimane, a relatively isolated indigenous people who live in lowland Amazonia Bolivia.Martinez will study the knowledge of children, a population often overlooked in ethnobotanical studies. About 200 children (ages 7-15) and their parents will be asked to participate so that she can investigate the theoretical and practical ethnobotanical knowledge of Tsimane children, their social and experiential contexts for learning, and their specific acquisition patterns. The research will use a mixed-methods approach, including participant observation, free-listing, semi-structured interviews, ethnobotanical collections, ethnobotanical knowledge tests, and time allocation scans. Hypotheses to be tested are: H1: A child''s ethnobotanical knowledge will bear a positive association with the ethnobotanical knowledge of the same sex parent; H2: A child''s ethnobotanical knowledge will bear a positive association with the ethnobotanical knowledge of his/her siblings; H3: The amount of time a child spends with his/her same sex parent and siblings will be positively associated with the child''s ethnobotanical knowledge; H4: There will be a positive interaction effect on a child''s ethnobotanical knowledge between parental and siblings ethnobotanical knowledge (H1-H2) and time spent with these figures (H3); H5: The relative amount of time a child spends interacting with nature will be positively associated with the child''s ethnobotanical knowledge; and, H6: There is a pattern to which plant knowledge is acquired during childhood. This research is important because it will contribute to understanding how children learn, it will document endangered ethnobotanical knowledge, it will help to develop better strategies for conserving ethnobotanical knowledge, and it will contribute to the education of a female social scientist from an under represented group.