Formação continuada de professoras de um centro municipal de educação infantil em Manaus: contribuições para a construção de experiências significativas de educação ambiental

Abstract

How to promote educational spaces that are capable of contributing to the development of social and environmental awareness of both children and teachers dedicated to early childhood education, in a time and space where these subjects are marked as protagonists? To answer this question, this thesis was developed within the “Educator Training and Praxis Facing the Amazonian Challenges” line of research, stablished in the Postgraduate Program in Education of the Federal University of Amazonas. The research was carried out with eight teachers belonging to the staff of one “Centro Municipal de Educação Infantil (CMEI)”, an Early Childhood Teaching Centre in Manaus, Amazonas, part of the municipal structure. 141 children, aged 04 and 05 years were also part of the research, whose main goal was to understand how the formation of teachers specialized in early education can contribute to a work that contributes to the proper building of a meaning experience with early childhood education to both children and adults involved. The research had two specific objectives: 1) Understand how education about the environment is being presented with the early childhood education curriculum; 2) Reflect over the meanings attributed to Environmental Education by the teacher; 3) Characterize the actions and/or project being developed with the schools that are related to Environmental Education, and what are the progresses and difficulties in carrying them out. The research development was based on the philosophical perspective of Historical-Dialectical Materialism and Historical-Cultural Theory. To build the corpus of analysis, 06 formative meetings and dialog groups were held with the CMEI’s teachers, and daily observation of their activities with the children were also conducted, within the activities related to the “Horta Escolar” project, a school garden during the academic year of 2019. The data were recorded in a field notebook, and photographs, along with audio and video recordings, that were made available to the teachers. Data analysis focused on the search for the meanings brought by the teachers about their work in Environmental Education, based on their own statements. It was noticed that the training process carried out with the teachers can contribute to broaden the thinking process about the relations stablished with the environment, with nature and its elements, as well as with their own relations, as humans seeking balance on the planet, which is reflected in how the proposals that value the relations between children and the nature are elaborated in early childhood education.