Educação ambiental na escola pública: bioma Caatinga e rio Taperoá como eixos norteadores

Abstract

The present research aimed to try to understand the relationships between the students of a public school of Taperoá - municipality inserted in the Caatinga biome with their environment, and contribute to an awareness of these social actors regarding environmental issues through educational activities related to this biome as well as Taperoá river and Manoel Marciolino weir (weir Taperoá II), the main aquatic bodies of this municipality. The study was conducted in four high school classes accounting 105 students.The first step consisted in the application of questionnaires for the direction, teachers and students, in order to diagnose structural and functional aspects of the school, as well as to investigate the conceptions of teachers and students with regard to environmental issues. The results of the application of these questionnaires reveal a well-structured school, the lack of interest of the teachers in working with environmental issues in the classroom and the ignorance of the students about global and local environmental issues. Then, eight ludic-educational activities were carried out monthly (from August/2009 to June/ 2010) with the students, having as its main themes the Caatinga and the aquatics bodies of the municipality of Taperoá. These activities culminated in a scientific and cultural exhibition where the students developed several projects on the themes worked during the study which were presented to the school, representatives of the public authorities and community in general. From these activities, it was possible to identify changes in conceptions and behavior in relation to the conservation of the Caatinga, the Taperoá river and the Manoel Marciolino weir, awakening the local community on the importance of diversity and richness of this biome, as well as the feeling conservation of water bodies. Finally, we analyzed the content regarding environmental themes, the Caatinga and the semi-arid region of Brazil of the textbooks adopted by the school. We analyzed 24 books distributed in 10 different disciplines. The results of the analysis reveaded that, in general, the books are inefficient when it comes to contents of the Environment and Environmental Education and that they should bring a more serious discussions about the issues relating to the Caatinga biome and the semi-arid region, confirming our idea that the textbook should not be the only resource used by the teacher in the classroom.