Environmental education in Brazil: different perspectives and good practices

Abstract

Since the beginning of the 1970s, different conceptions and practices constructed Brazilian Environmental Education, that are expressed by environmental education nomenclatures such as popular, critical, political, community, formal, non-formal, for sustainable development, for sustainable societies, conservationist, socio-environmental, outdoors, among others. The history of this education includes a commitment to the struggle for democratic freedoms, with a strong clamor for social and political changes, which is at the origin of the Brazilian environmental movement. In 1981, with the National Environmental Policy, the institutionalization of Environmental Education began, and today it is present in several documents, which reinforce the compulsory inclusion in all levels of education and guide diverse actions, projects and programs. Starting from different perspectives, the environmentalist educator way of doing is focused on the conservation of protected areas (Conservation Units), preservation of species, campaigns in defense of the Amazon, school environmental education, environmental management, programs for selective collection and recycling of solid waste, management of water resources, among others. Practices that differ in terms of political and pedagogical positioning and range from the most preservationist to the socio-environmentalists focused on participation and social transformation. The Oca–Environmental Education and Policy Laboratory from ESALQ/USP bases its educator way of doing in a method and five concepts, understood as pillars for the development of any environmentalist educator action, thus offering practical, conceptual and theoretical contributions to its activities of teaching, research, extension and university management.