Educação ambiental: concepções de meio ambiente de professores e alunos do meio rural do município de Cascavel – PR

Abstract

The practice of Environmental Education (EA) in the school seeks to ensure teaching and learning that makes students able to understand the environment with its processes and dynamics, and the role and responsibility of man in society. And it is recognizing the complexity and totality of EA to work this theme in school field becomes important, as it provides students reflect on the reality imposed on them daily making them critical and capable individuals to act politically against the questions that haunt the countryside. However, for this to be possible, the acting in the field education teachers should assume the role of environmental educators committed to the educational process and the development of strategies for solving problems of the local community. In view of the above, this study aimed to: i) investigate the average environmental awareness of elementary school teachers and rural areas; ii) verify the conceptions of medium and environment of elementary school students from rural areas; iii) investigate whether the pedagogical practice and conceptions of environment and EA made by teachers influence in the formation of students conceptions. The survey was conducted in two schools in the field of state schools the city of Cascavel, PR, with the participation of teachers of Science and Biology, and students from 5th to 8th grades of elementary school and 1st to 3 rd year of high school. To collect data with the teachers an individual questionnaire composed of objective and essay questions was applied. In data collection with students early activities were proposed as drawings, texts and phrases related to “environment”, followed soon after to finish with an individual questionnaire consisting of objective questions. There was a predominance of conceptions in the "naturalistic" and "anthropocentric" to environmental and "traditional" and "problem solving" to EA, both for students and for teachers, and only one teacher conceptions presented in the categories "globalizing" to environmental and "integrator" for EA, the most advanced. Therefore, these data are strengthening the assumption that students are influenced by the views of their teachers and that few teachers that have a critical understanding of EA in the general context and field.