Estudo sobre a educação ambiental na rede municipal de ensino de Francisco Beltrão, Paraná, Brasil

Abstract

Environmental Education (EE) is related to educational practices involving environmental issues. It is a tool of social representation that has in its teachings an emancipatory potential for life. In Brazil, invironmental education became part of Brazilian legislation on April 27, 1999, with the enactment of Law No. 9.795, of CONAMA - the National Environmental Council, with the scope of developing critical awareness of environmental issues, an essential and permanent component of national education and must be present at all levels and modalities of formal and non-formal education. Therefore, the environmental education provided for by law, known as formal education, applies in schools. The curricular organization related to the approach to environmental education is based on the documents called: National Curricular Parameters (PCNs); National Curricular Guidelines (DCNs) and the National Common Curricular Base (BNCC). These documents, which guide basic education, indicate that environmental education should not be approached as an isolated subject, but should be included in all areas of knowledge, from a transversal and integrative perspective, considering that human beings are inseparable from nature. Even though the documents indicate that the subject is cross-cutting, the theoretical framework shows that environmental education practices in schools generally take the form of isolated actions, i.e. they consist of work that is not yet in line with theory, showing that there is no appropriation of the expected knowledge. Among the various ways of doing environmental education at school, there are three distinct macro-trends: the Conservative, which is summed up by the simplicity of the fragmented worldview, i.e. it views all environmental issues with romanticism; the Pragmatic, based on compensating for the damage caused by the capitalist market model; and the Critical, which takes into account more complex issues, such as social and historical reality, involving man, society and the environment. In view of this, the object of study of the research is focused on environmental education in the Municipal Education Network of Francisco Beltrão - PR, which has its origins in the problematization of the researcher's work as a teacher and coordinator in the municipality. This experience made it possible to see gaps between the theories found in the theoretical framework and the documents researched in relation to teaching practices in environmental education. The method used to develop the study is qualitative and quantitative, developed through the triangulation of data, which are articulated and complement each other: Theoretical and bibliographic data; guiding documents for basic education; and questionnaires administered to nursery and elementary school teachers in the municipality of Francisco Beltrão-PR. Environmental education takes place through projects both at the Early Childhood Education Center (CMEI) and at the school. At the same time, the municipality has an environmental education project called "ECOMUSEU", which can be considered "grandiose", especially in terms of its physical structure. By correlating the conceptions of environmental education and the environment, as well as the misinformation regarding the documents, mentioned in the survey by the teachers, it is possible to state that these environmental education practices may indeed be occurring in a fragmented, isolated way, not connected to everyday actions and disciplinary content, not producing a transformative, effective, critical and socially relevant environmental education.