Percepção ambiental de estudantes de Ciências Biológicas da Faculdade de Formação de Professores sobre o Rio Imboaçu em São Gonçalo-RJ: reflexões sobre a formação docente

Abstract

Environmental Education (EE) improves the perception and understanding of factors that encourage socio-environmental conservation. The objective of this study is to analyze the perceptions of biological science students at the Faculty of Teacher Training of the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ-FFP) on the topic of urban water bodies, specifically rivers in the municipality of São Gonçalo, RJ. The research sought to analyze topics related to students' perceptions of the following disciplines based on the amendments of: fish biology, geology, ecology I, zoology IV, society and environment, teaching laboratory III, zoogeography, hydrology, work techniques in botany, teaching laboratory I, fundamentals for the study of biodiversity, ecology II, ecology III, and zoology III. The methodological process developed led to a qualitative exploratory study, which included 60 respondents, aiming to assess knowledge about the city's hydrology. The observations made in the data collection of students' objective and discursive responses reflect the need to understand the students' formative background on the topic, which requires a curricular analysis of the syllabuses of the undergraduate program in biological sciences at the campus in question. Based on the ideas expressed by Reigota (1995) and Azevedo (1999), reflecting on concepts and definitions of critical environmental education, and Malhotra (2011), understanding through association—the so-called knowledge—develops, making the lack of debate on the topic in various disciplines evident. This fact directly influences how students view rivers, with a human-centered conception, even though it is strongly influenced by the pedagogical conduct of the teachers responsible for their training. However, the students who participated in the study perceive the high levels of environmental degradation present in the municipality. This conception needs to be reconstructed, making the teaching-learning process feasible and applicable, since the individual's daily life and their entire environment need to be taken into consideration for the construction of the teaching process, which goes beyond memorization and aims at understanding and integrating new knowledge with that already experienced.