Educação ambiental e representações sociais de meio ambiente: uma análise da prática pedagógica no ensino fundamental em Patos de Minas MG (2003-2004)

Abstract

This study approaches the necessity of an Environmental Education in our days, given the socio-environmental problems that affect life quality in the Planet. We have seen in recent years a lot of works said to be on Environmental Education, that are developed in schools, companies, non-governmental organizations and other entities. However, we have not verified changes of behaviors in relation to the environment. As a teacher of the elementary school where children experience some of their habit formation , I decided to make a research on how Environmental Education is practiced in that teaching segment. The choice presents one private school of confessional administration , and one public school. They are very different one from another in what regards people social, cultural and economical conditions, as well as the geographical localization of the schools in the city of Patos de Minas MG. The fact of choosing a public and a private school is due to the belief and culture of the population which, in general, consider that the teaching in a private school is better then the teaching of a public school, especially in Patos de Minas. Starting with the social representations of the involved subjects we tried to make a comparison to verify their contribution on the formation of important concepts from the Environmental Education point of view. The research was developed from October, 2003 to November, 2004 with a quanti-qualitative approach. The obtained data were classified observing the social representations of the researched subjects. The categories used in the analysis of the social representations of the Environment were the Naturalistic, the Anthropocentric and the Globalizing ones, while the categories used in the ocial representations of the Environmental Education were the Traditional, the Corrective and the Integrative ones. We verified that the practice of the Environmental Education in the researched schools have been developed from a traditional and corrective vision and, a lot of times, we could identify the prevailing idea that the environmental issue should only be worked by some disciplines or even out of the classroom. We consider that vision as being a reductional one, once it was verified that both the teachers and the students still don't understand the Environment as being a complex interaction of the social, political, economical and cultural configurations, because the social representations that they have of the Environment are framed by the naturalistic and anthropocentric categories. Besides that, it seems to us that the teachers don't understand very well the necessity of developing strategies that culminate in an efficient practice for the critical citizens' formation that can be able to accomplish their social roles in the Environment. This work won't have been in vain if it can somehow indicate a reflection and also alternative ways to the political-pedagogical practice of the Environmental Education, with subjects that are able to act, articulate and organize themselves in the society they live, participating with responsibility in the construction of their environment and in the solution of their own problems.