Identificando a Educação Ambiental nas escolas municipais de Cabo Frio: uma reflexão sobre práticas pedagógicas

Abstract

In this work we propose to investigate which meanings are assigned by the teachers to Environmental Education and from these meanings, knowing how this concept fits in their perceptions of pedagogical practices. Although environmental education is not an exclusive assignment of school, we opted to put the teacher as the focus of our research considering that teachers have the opportunity to work with the construction of knowledge, contributing to the formation of more questioning learners. We have taken as subjects participating in this study, teachers from the 2nd cycle of Elementary school and Secondary education of municipal schools in Cabo Frio. In the methodological route adopted, the construction of data had started through the completion of half-open questionnaires answered during the school years 2013 and 2014. We have opted for presenting the results in two chapters: one with quantitative data analysis and another containing an analytical description based on content analysis. The interpretations of the meanings attributed to Environmental Education by these teachers and how these meanings are reflected in their perceptions about activities in the classroom allowed us to classify their pedagogical practices in the categories of current Environmental Education mapping of Lucie Sauvé and thus have an overview of which prevails in the schools surveyed. We conclude that, the majority of teachers who develop Environmental Education in school work in a way so that the student can understand the importance of preserving the environment to its surroundings, and thus environmental education has a very close meaning of the conservative current described by author. This importance is determined by the teacher although not meaningless, because the teachers involved seek to establish a teaching-learning process that takes into account issues closest to the student's reality.