Parque Nacional da Chapada das Mesas como espaço não formal para o ensino de Educação Ambiental em Carolina, MA

Abstract

In face of environmental impacts caused by unrestricted use of natural resources with no regard for the present and future generations, environment education was created as a form to face and decrease environmental problems entailed by predatory and exploratory capitalism. Environmental Education (EE) must be offered as a cross-cutting action in all levels of teaching and in specific programs directed to the community, preparing the citizen to protect the environment; therefore, a non-formal learning space for EE is critical for student’s education. The study’s aims are to identify environment practices and discourses as well as verify environment conceptions present on the Political Pedagogical Projects (PPP) of the Centro de Ensino Sertão Maranhense teaching unit, in Carolina city, south of Maranhão state; analyze biology textbooks regarding EE content; map and describe places on the Chapada das Mesas National Park to carry out EE practices; create thematic boards about EE related to biology and suggest EE activities to be performed at Chapada das Mesas National Park. The present work was characterized as an exploratory qualitative study, document analysis of PPP and textbooks were used as an instrument of data collection; specific bibliography was used to create thematic boards and EE activities. After PPP analysis, we identified that EE on schools is multi-layered, because it’s found in a scattered form and with little contextualization in the document. EE was mentioned only once on PPP, associating it to multidisciplinary elective disciplines and there is no mention of a specific EE project. It was not possible to identify actions of EE regarding analysis of PPP involving the city’s Conservation Unit. Regarding textbooks content, we identified that the books from first and second year of high school had more emphasis on environmental questions, whereas the third-year textbook had no content related to the environment, considering the implementation of the new National Common Curricular Base in 2018 and textbook changes. Four thematic boards were developed referring to fauna, flora, hydric resources and ethnic and cultural diversities, emphasizing that Conservation Units for EE learning are essential to students’ teaching-learning process. The pedagogical actions’ suggested to be performed at the Chapada das Mesas National Park include visits, trails and scientific studies of the Cerrado biome, interfering on actions related to deforestation, waste generation, fires, soil erosion and more.