A temática ambiental no contexto escolar: abordagens adotadas em projetos do Programa Ciência na Escola no Amazonas

Abstract

We believe that education constitutes a powerful intervention tool in the world for the construction of new concepts and consequent change of habits. In this sense, environmental education proposes the construction of a responsible citizenship, stimulating fairer interactions between human beings and the other beings that inhabit the Planet, for the construction of a present and a sustainable, healthy and socially fair fuure. The objective of this paper was to investigate the presence of the environmental theme in public schools in Amazonas under the Science in School Program (PCE), an initiative of the Foundation for Research Support in Amazonas (FAPEAM), which aims to stimulate the scientific literacy of basic education of public schools and the involvement of their teachers with scientific practice. A total of 61 projects developed in 2014 and 2015 in public schools in the capital of Manaus and in nine municipalities (Atalaia do Norte, Borba, Coari, Iranduba, Itacoatiara, Nhamundá, Parintins, Tabatinga and Tefé) were analyzed in which was brought the theme of environment as their object of research. The results presented here were obtained from the analysis of edicts, decisions, projects and their respective reports. It could be noticed that this theme is not a priority in the projects developed, since only 8% of them, in the years of 2014 and 2015, brought this approach as a research theme. The most worked topics were garbage (28%), recycling (21%), environmental issues (16%), water (10%) and composting (10%). The majority of these projects were developed in Manaus (62%), in schools administered by the State Department of Education - SEDUC (83%) and with high school students (56%). Most of these projects were linked to the disciplines of Biology (26%), Geography (26%) and Science (19%). The main means used to carry out the activities were: bibliographic survey, workshops, collections and videos. The teachers coordinating the projects are mostly female (75%). All the professors have completed higher education, of which 31% have a postgraduate level of specialization (Lato Sensu) and 9% have a master's degree. Among the three politicalpedagogical macro-trends of Environmental Education, the pragmatic macro-trend was the one that stood out among the projects analyzed, followed by conservationist and critical.