O papel da educação na conscientização ambiental: uma reflexão teórica sobre educação ambiental

Abstract

Nowadays, society sees on development and growing of industry the unlimited and unrestricted use of natural resources, and as a consequence of this fact, we are going through an economical, social and mainly environmental crisis. In this way, the focus on school is a great challenge because it is the one which has the major interventional power on society, and has as its main goal the education of conscious well-behaved citizens in it. So, the objective of this work was a bibliographical survey about the role of the Environmental Education at school as a form of transformation and awareness of this issue. We have approached a brief history of this kind of teaching and, its interdisciplinary role; its relevance and the new teacher/student relationship that must be created to accomplish this new knowledge. In this way, we can justify this work by the necessity to adapt education to environmental issues because there is the need to join the knowledge of all subjects at school, in order to develop basic values of preservation, changing of behavior, and the way they face this matter, as well as, by taking concrete action upon these values. This environmental education at school is a need, so that the students can take different behavioral changes to our environment, being an example, and also spreading to others the new acquired values as a way of multiplying action, by influencing other generations. Educational activities must give priority to learning concepts and taking attitude toward awareness, prevention, preservation, recuperation, and cooperation to the environment improvement.