A EDUCAÇÃO AMBIENTAL NAS ESCOLAS DE EDUCAÇÃO DO CAMPO: O CASO DA ESCOLA PADRE JOSIMO, NO MUNICÍPIO DE ESPERANTINA-TO

Abstract

Changes in the ecosystem, excessive use of natural resources, deterioration of the environment, urgency of social and environmental sustainability and the epistemological review of environmental concepts are part of the context that justifies discussing and critically analyzing environmental education (EE). From school, EE presents itself as a space for prevention, confrontation, questioning and awareness of human acting in this local and globally so threatened environment. The study entitled Environmental education in rural schools: the case of Padre Josimo School in the Municipality of Esperantina-TO was carried out under the Professional Master's Degree in Regional Development at the Alves Faria University Center (UNIALFA), in line with Research on Public Policy and Regional Development. This research seeks to substantiate the understanding of EE from the construction of the Democratic State of Environmental Law, a construction that is associated with a critical and transformative awareness, according to proposals by authors such as, among others, Salet and Fensterseifer (2014), Leite and Ayala (2004), Gutiérrez and Prado (1997), Boff (1999, 2013), Gadotti (2000) and Carvalho (2012). Initially using bibliographic research, this research aims to know the local possibilities and contributions of EA in the Padre Josimo Parrot Beak Family School (EFABIP), Esperantina-TO. In this sense, the study undertakes, at first, to present the institutionalization of EE with its history, its legal frameworks, its methodologies and practices in the context of Brazilian society. In a second moment, the investigation turns to the specific field of research, EFABIP, in order to identify both the social and environmental practices developed in the school and their consequences in local and regional reality. This work is configured as a case study whose qualitative and descriptive research uses questionnaires, interviews, observations, literature review and document analysis. Through research it was concluded that the EE developed at EFABIP Padre Josimo is a teaching from interdisciplinary and cross-cutting agroecological practices, identified with the students' family, local and regional reality, developing co-responsibility, citizenship and sustainability. Equally, EF's greatest limits in EFABIP are the lack of financial and material resources and the resistance of parents and students to incorporate agroecology and all necessary care for the environment.