O uso da cartografia colaborativa para mapeamento dos espaços de vivência dos alunos de graduação em geografia da Universidade Federal de Santa Maria

Abstract

The term collaborative cartography is defined as a voluntary contribution that can be produced by users without cartographic knowledge, with the construction of maps through internet browsers. Collaborative mapping, popular for being used in environmental disasters, violence against women, COVID-19 cases, among other topics, still has several areas to be explored. The objective of the present work is to demonstrate the use of collaborative cartography to map the living spaces and places of students seeking to understand the social, economic and leisure relationships established with Santa Maria and the region. Canvis was used, where six points were made available to the participant: “I live here”, “my parents live here”, “I eat here”, “I buy clothes here”, “I buy food here ”and“ I walk here ”. An evaluative questionnaire was also applied, with questions related to difficulties with the platform, with Cartography, importance of UFSM and places of attachment of students. Were 30 undergraduates participated in the collaborative mapping and 13 responded to the questionnaire. The main place of experience is the University itself and stands out as a place of residence for nine participants, in the student's home, and as a place to eat, with the University Restaurant standing out as an important daily living space. In addition, the campus was designated as the main leisure space for students. The cartograms indicate two main poles of students' experiences, these being the Camobi neighborhood and the Centro neighborhood. The Centro neighborhood stands out in the analysis, when we consider the places where students buy clothes. According to the data obtained with the collaborative mapping, it is possible to note that UFSM students are important for the economy of the municipality and region, although some participants who responded to the evaluation activity indicated the opposite. UFSM is economically important for the real estate, food and clothing sectors, in addition to promoting the circulation and transportation of students between municipalities. In the evaluation questionnaire, we noticed that the majority had no difficulty with the Canvis platform or had difficulties related to Cartography, which may be related to the ease that students have with technological tools. Thus, it is important to promote the popularization of geographic information, which aims to bring geotechnologies closer to geography undergraduate students.