Environmental Education and Perception about the Environment by High School Students and Teachers

Abstract

The philosophies and epistemologies that guide the environmental thought of a certain educational community influences its actions in favor of the environment, including the absences of these actions, thus the political-pedagogical propositions that guide the environmental education actions are also strongly affected. In this context, the actions in environmental education in the town of Presidente Kennedy (Brazil) are analyzed as well as the perceptions/actions regarding environment, considering specifically the high school students of the town. The analysis will occur from semi structured interviews with two important professionals that act in the field and also from a questionnaire with open-ended questions applied to a group of second year students. The data were analyzed from Bardin (2010) content analysis. The project indicates that the way of thinking the environment, represented by conservatism, and the traditional perspective of environmental education maintain the actions and can contribute to the maintenance of indifference to the theme that addresses what is broadcasted by the media in a superficial, uncritical and little contextualized way.