Using a questionnaire to investigate Brazilian primary school pupil´s knowledge and attitudes towards "bad" mosquitoes and "beautiful" butterflies

Children have a basic knowledge of insects that they see during their everyday life out of school such as in their garden, round the house, walking around the block where they live or in the yard on school gardens or orchard. We sought to establish the level of knowledge amongst schools aged pupils. We have to understand the knowledge of mosquitoes and butterflies related to humans because mosquitoes are important vectors for Dengue fever in Brazil. A total of 361 children aged 3 to 16 years old enrolled in two southern Brazilian urban and rural public schools were invited to participate in this exploratory study. A5 point Likert scale questionnaire was developed. The scale categories varied from strongly disagree to strongly agree as contents of the questions. The scale consisted of 22 biological statements: 11 for the mosquitoes and 11 for the butterfly. The questions were designed to explore what attitudes and knowledge about butterflies and mosquitoes