Educação ambiental em (re)vista: a produção discursiva da revista nova escola

Abstract

Environmental issues are currently the focus of studies around the world due to the gravity and urgency of finding solutions to the issues that concern the various social sectors nowadays. In Brazil, the environment has become a target of attention and highly relevant studies in recent decades, the political, educational, social and cultural sectors. To the extent that the technical-scientific development is realized, the distance grows between man and nature as well as its domination over the natural environment, enhancing human actions artificially designed, as the dynamic expansion of urban centers, or regions of highly mechanized farming. We see nature being used for the benefit of man, causing the destruction of many ecosystems, without due concern for the preservation of natural reserves. We know that over-consumption, characteristic of contemporary society, contributes largely to the assault on the environment while the media, through marketing messages, influences the increased demand for consumption. Awareness that there is a need to modify human behavior toward nature, Environmental Education (EE) has emerged as a crosscutting theme in schools. The objective of this study is to analyze a cultural instrument designed to promote information and training of basic education teachers. We seek to understand the possibilities that the New School Magazine (NSM), published by April Publishing House , presents educators in their complex task of promoting the EE. Particularly, we are interested in understanding the different types of texts and meaning produced by them in the pages of that magazine on the subject of EE in the school context, intending to solve three questions: how environmental issues are presented in the magazine? What discourses does it argue on environment and environmental education? How does the magazine influence the training of teachers and their activities to promote environmental education? The desk research has enabled us to understand the extent of the message addressed to the teacher and examine how environmental issues are present in its content. If, on the one hand, there are rich texts in NSM dedicated to EE , on the other , there is no definite proposal or suggestion regarding teacher training in this direction, creating a gap between the content of the magazine and the little attention given to the serious issue that the medium environment represents, besides the lack of ability of teachers in this subject . This finding was supported by the literature, in which expert authors of the education sector and Environmental Education, as Sauvé , Layrargues , Sorrentino and Reigota , among others cited in the development of this study, who propose a critical environmental education, confirm the importance of this topic, the need to work it properly in school and the lack of preparation of teachers for this purpose, because it is their duty to educate students about the urgency of behavioral changes, starting with children in the early school years .