Relações entre a educação ambiental e sustentabilidade: um estudo envolvendo escolas estaduais do município de Varginha-MG.

Abstract

The conflicting relationship between scientific, economic and technological development and natural resources leads to alarming socio-environmental impacts on the planet, threatening forms of life as they are today due to the overexploitation of the environment. In this scenario, education in the school environment plays an important role as a place to promote actions and reflections that aim to integrate the individual with issues related to the environment as a participating and active agent in the environment in which they live. However, pedagogical practices, when considered, especially in the context of public schools, demonstrate a relevant deficit characterized by gaps and inconsistencies between theory and practice, resulting in insignificant and even negative results in student training. The present study understands that the theme of sustainability can contribute and bring to environmental education (EE) elements for its approach in school spaces, encouraging plural and critical actions on this highly relevant topic. However, what is observed is that it is still misunderstood and has little or no space for action in the pedagogical field. In this sense, this research aims to bring reflections and publications on this topic within the scope of state public schools in the municipality of Varginha, with the aim of identifying how environmental education and sustainability interrelate and materialize in these spaces. In order to detect this relationship, the study carried out a review regarding this subject and collected data in state public schools in Varginenses based on the analysis of the Political-Pedagogical Project (PPP) through the search for key terms, a questionnaire for investors analyzed based on descriptive statistics and interviews with teachers treated by content analysis. The data presented in this text demonstrate a lack of information regarding the actions planned and conducted in EA and Sustainability, a factor that is in disagreement with the principles established in the guiding documents and reflected in the structure of the PPP which, in many of the schools surveyed, does not provide indications of practices students on these themes or have misunderstandings in their understanding of these themes, elements reinforced in the questionnaires filled out by managers. It was also possible, in some cases, for there to be a disconnection between what was foreseen in the PPP and the actions carried out in the spaces researched, this is reflected in the managers' responses to the questionnaire. In addition to elements such as the unsatisfactory use of school physical space to promote pedagogical practices in EA and the lack of interrelationship between Environmental Education and Sustainability, the data already prepared also demonstrate that the schools surveyed do not consider practices involved in the theme of sustainability.