Educação ambiental no ensino de Ciências: um olhar para as concepções, práticas, livro didático e documentos curriculares

Abstract

This research addresses a study on Environmental Education, encompassing the conceptions and practices of thematic in the teaching of Science in the 9th grade of Elementary School. It is developed based on the following question: What are the conceptions and practices of Environmental Education that permeate the teaching of Science in the 9th grade of Elementary School according to curriculum documents? Therefore, the general objective was to investigate and analyze the concepts and practices of Environmental Education in research, in the 9th grade Science Textbook and in curricular documents, to understand the way in which Environmental Education has been approached. The specific objectives were to: 1) Investigate research at the Brazilian Institute of Information in Science and Technology regarding the concepts and practices of Environmental Education in the Science Textbook; 2) Analyze the 9th grade Science Textbooks (from the National Textbook Program, 2020) in relation to the concepts of conservative and critical Environmental Education; and 3) Investigate in the National Common Curricular Base, area of Natural Sciences, in the Rio Grande do Sul Reference Matrix of 2023, the relationships with the content of the Textbook, referring to Science Teaching in the 9th year of Elementary School, with focus on Environmental Education. This research has a qualitative approach and, for the analysis methodology, we followed the path of Content Analysis. Based on the results of the review research at the Brazilian Institute of Information in Science and Technology, we found that the perspective of critical Environmental Education is still distant, since, of the twelve research studies analyzed, in eight the conservative conception of Environmental Education was verified. In relation to Environmental Education practices in research on Science Textbooks, we can observe important proposals, strategies and investigations in the development of Environmental Education, suggesting possible ways to be implemented in Science teaching, however, for the most part, continue to be emphasized in a specific manner, requiring a deeper study of Textbooks to verify possible problematizations or contextualizations regarding Environmental Education from the perspective of critical conception. In the analysis of 9th grade Science Textbooks, we observed that the term Environmental Education is practically non-existent in the nine Textbooks analyzed. We also found that all textbooks address the object of knowledge “Preservation of biodiversity”, covering the skills required in the National Common Curricular Base, but do not present Environmental Education linked to other content, the highest frequency of conservative conception being identified in all Textbooks, that is, Environmental Education continues to be worked in a naive way, disregarding the social, political and economic aspects of society,leaving it at the teacher's discretion to coordinate with critical environmental Education. In the study covering the National Common Curricular Base, the Reference Matrix and the relationship with the content of the 9th grade Science Textbook, we observed that the term EA is practically absent from the National Common Curricular Base and, consequently, from the Reference Matrix, only the mention of the term “environmental” is observed. We understand, therefore, that there is an absence of the theme in the curricular documents and the relationship with the content of Science Textbooks is limited to what is oriented in the respective documents. In this way, we understand, from the analysis of practices, research and the Textbook, that the Environmental Education that is being proposed is predominantly conservative, which ends up minimizing the confrontation of environmental problems. In relation to curricular documents, Environmental Education is practically absent, conveying the perception that little or nothing will be worked on in the school context, thus hindering its development. In this sense, it is up to the teacher to articulate Environmental Education in their practice based on the contextualization of the National Common Curricular Base and a democratic construction of the curriculum.