Educação para os recursos hídricos: um estudo de caso no Distrito de São Vicente - Araruna/PR

Abstract

The numerous anthropogenic actions that degrade the environment, especially water resources, reinforce the need to improve the management, governance, and rational use of water. To promote this change, educational actions grounded in teaching and learning theories focused on Environmental Education are required, such as the Sustainable Transformative Learning Theory (STLT). In this context, the research question that guided the study resulting in this dissertation was: how can environmental understanding be developed, in specific contexts, among students in the final years of elementary school regarding the importance of water? To answer this question, the general objective of the research was to design, implement, and evaluate a didactic sequence structured based on STLT, centered on a knowledge objective related to water resources within the Geography curriculum, with the aim of contributing to the development of sustainable attitudes and environmental understanding concerning the negative impacts of soil and water resource contamination. To this end, a qualitative approach was adopted, with the State Rural School Colégio Estadual do Campo Joana D’Arc, located in Sítio São Vicente, in Araruna, Paraná, Brazil, serving as the research setting. Data collection instruments consisted of questionnaires and assessment activities administered to students from a 6th-grade class, as well as questionnaires answered by Geography teachers working at the institution, who were invited to evaluate the didactic sequence. The results showed that the dialogical pedagogical approach (grounded in the cognitive, psychomotor, and affective domains of STLT), by valuing students’ knowledge of their own reality, was fundamental to the development of critical thinking and student engagement. It was observed that students were able to identify, analyze, and propose concrete solutions to local problems related to sanitation and water infrastructure, which validates Environmental Education as a powerful instrument for social transformation and participatory management of water resources. Evidence of learning was noticeable at several moments during the implementation of the didactic sequence, especially during the stage involving the drafting of a request letter, in which students identified problems and presented suggestions for improvements related to local sanitation and water infrastructure. This letter was formally submitted to the municipal public authorities. Based on the reflections that emerged from the evaluation process of the didactic sequence, it was converted (through adaptations, expansions, and improvements) into an educational product, available in the Institutional Repository of UTFPR (http://https://repositorio.utfpr.edu.br/jspui/