Environmental education as an awareness tool.
Its story can be briefly described by the following steps:
1968 – Founded as the Club of Rome, it brings together scientists, economists and senior government officials from various countries to analyze the world situation and make predictions and solutions for the future (in an ecological perspective, the global system). The studies and proposals of informal association, sponsored by the Volkswagen Foundation, the first report of this organization was published in 1972 under the title: “The limits of growth”.
They pointed to some factors that could lead to a global crisis never seen before:
– Depletion of natural resourcesan energy crisis, population growth, food shortages, mass unemployment, environmental pollution (the industrialization of the modern world is rapidly destroying the environment without return and beyond any estimate).
1972 – The United Nations Conference in Stockholm took place under the theory of thought from the Club of Rome. Ecologists politicized the issue and opened a new field in international relations: ecodiplomacy. When the United Nations Organization (UN) was established in 1945, it was highlighted as priorities for peace, human rights and equitable development that the environmental issue was not a priority or concern in its first years of existence, much less the state of welfare. Only since the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment in 1972 has ecological security become the fourth priority of the United Nations.
1987 – The World Commission on Environment and Development (CMMAD), known as the Brundland Commission, recommended the creation of a universal charter or declaration on environmental protection and sustainable development.
“Respond to the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to also meet theirs.” Our Common Future, Report of the Brundland Commission that inspired Rio-92.
1992 – The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, also known as Rio-92 and ECO-92, twenty years after the Stockholm Conference, also felt the impact of the theories of the Club of Rome , mainly in the form of approaches and proposals from developed countries.
However, in the interval between the two conferences, significant changes occurred in both societies and in ecological and environmental thinking. Rio-92 was also the scene of the critical theories of the Club of Rome. Eco 92 started the process and reached an initial consensus on the Rio Declaration of Principles, “to continue with the Earth Charter project.
This time, it was officially Agenda 21, as a document of today’s international problems, preparing the world for the challenges of the 21st century.
nineteen ninety five – International Seminar on the Land Agreement, held in The Hague, Netherlands. There the needs, the main elements and the form of elaboration of the Earth Charter were defined.
nineteen ninety six – The Conference on Climate Change held in Kyoto in Japan and known as Rio +5 took place five years after Eco 92. The official document of the Conference, known as the Kyoto Protocol, was adopted on 11.12.97, seeking the participation of a reduction of about 6% of greenhouse gas emissions in industrialized countries until the period 2008 to 2012.
1997 – During the River, a Land Agreement Commission was formed. At that time it was the first reference text draft, today’s discussions that lighthouse in the world. The Earth agreement and the Rio Declaration that seeks to establish international respect for the interests of all and protect the integrity of the ecology and development in general. It is understood that environmental education is essential for the formation of the individual as a citizen.
The provisions of article 2 of Law 9795/99 that establishes the National Environmental Education Policy (PNEA) must be present in an articulated manner at all levels and modalities of the educational process in all sectors of society.
In this way, it is a legal instrument for the citizen to be environmentally aware, it can be imputed by society and politics, responsibility and obligation to its institutionalization. It must be worked on as a transversal theme, in accordance with the National Curricular Parameters and Guidelines, since the law prioritizes environmental education projects in the disciplines of basic education.
AWARENESS AND ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION
The aspirations of a community or population must be considered in the environmental planning to which it will be submitted, since it seeks to solve the problems that alarm with the diagnosis. These characteristics show that the knowledge of the environment by the people who inhabit and understand this area generates data from the development of business activities and relationship with nature.
The community, by being there, has the power to transform and build new landscapes, new spaces, as well as its mental images, thus revealing more or less clear perceptive plans, according to its vital needs or limitations, according to its social and cultural. priorities
As Lerípio (1996) proposes: Perception inevitably influences human behavior, but to maintain a quality environment, behavior must be directed to specific acts. Furthermore, specific acts must take precedence over other possible actions that reflect a different hierarchy of values. Personal habits reflect an individual’s value priority and treating the environment with consideration requires a focus on environmental values. Information and education of the public are essential, especially in developing the approach known as environmental ethics.
Lerípio (2001) proposing that it complements the environment to influence the behavior of the group, to increase the participation of many individuals for the achievement of common objectives, “A certain degree of consensus must be reached in the definition of environmental quality. Priorities within society must be established for the definition of objectives”.
According to Dias (1994), it is possible to sensitize the public through the three steps: a) sensitize, b) create attitudes that influence actions and c) gain cooperation in solving problems. To do this, you must first diagnose the actual state of public opinion and trends. Research on attitudes can provide an understanding of certain issues, and interviews with leaders in the public can develop an understanding of the dimensions of attitudes and motivations. Awareness raising consists of informing the public about the importance of a phenomenon in their lives. Inform to educate. Active participation is gained when the opportunity to express interest in real issues is offered, especially when the subject indicates that participation can actually influence an outcome (TUAN, 1980).
Lerípio (op. cit) points out that efficient decision-making on environmental issues requires understanding how people perceive and evaluate the probability of uncertain events. If the human being is the one who makes decisions, he must consider that his behavior is a function of his images of the real world and in the extensive information system, which determines the interaction of the value systems of individuals and their images of the real world. .
The implementation of social mobilization incurs the risk that the mutual influence of psychological, economic and environmental factors will be activated in the attempt to control the nature and development of laws by the government in the direction of policy formulation, thus undermining the effectiveness of the plans.
The UNCED-United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, the best way to deal with environmental issues is with the participation of all interested citizens. And environmental education is shown in the long term – as the best way to create critical awareness in the community, based on the analysis of the problems experienced, and, from there, specify their participation in solving those problems.
Education is itself a reading of nature. At the same time, the relationship with nature requires a certain relationship between individuals in society. A debate on when, how, where and why the methodology in environmental education all leads us to believe in its success.
Environmental education can go in this direction, because it will value not only the action on anthropocentric nature, but also the division of interests that permeate it. Establish an environmental awareness that does not go in the strict sense, but that understands, investigates, and searches intensely, in the fields of formal and informal education, for the best conditions for their teaching practice.
One of the keys of Environmental Education is to train individuals to face and solve the environmental problems that affect them most directly, with a central point where the understanding of the complex nature of the natural environment and the environment created by man , resulting in the integration of biological, physical, social, economic and cultural aspects.
Understood as any environmental relearning process, the goal is for individuals to acquire knowledge, values, behaviors, and practical skills to participate responsibly and effectively in the prevention and solution of environmental problems, and in environmental quality management.
This is only viable by allowing access to correct information on specific problems that require it, making clear the economic, political and ecological interdependence, and the range of decisions and behaviors.
Therefore, Environmental Education must contribute to the development of a spirit of responsibility and solidarity (TUAN, 1980, p. 54).
It implies educating receiving information, working on it, interpreting it and acting as a consequence of the interpretation that has been reached.
There is an active participation of individuals. – Wishing to achieve a specific problem and train people, it is necessary to know how to do it, how to pass on information, in relation to life, the activities of people, so that they feel affected and therefore interested in deepening the minimum knowledge . about.
Activities, practical demonstrations, examples from daily life, are more efficient ways to reach the target audience. Involving people in a business practice, the scope is even greater. Most of the environmental education projects do not reach their objectives, or do not obtain satisfactory results because they are not addressed to the practical problems of a certain community or region, or the way of working is at odds with the reality and interests of the target population. . It is important to develop and implement an environmental education project that satisfies the target audience, in terms of:
a) socioeconomic and educational characteristics (education level),
b) Knowledge of the environmental issue and interpretation, verified through the study of environmental perception.
c) Interests and values,
d) Information on environmental issues and e) Environmental characteristics of the region in which they live.
For the satisfactory development of the projects of the proposed environmental education days, which is from the profile of the group where it is established, making a complete diagnosis to the characterization of the group, its needs and anxieties, its values and way of seeing the environment Therefore, added to the doers, teachers, together with the environmental characteristics to be treated, then a real opportunity for everyone to participate in an environmental education project begins.
