Educação ambiental crítica e pedagogia histórico-crítica no ensino de química: possibilidades e limites no ensino médio.

Abstract

The present research sought to investigate how students develop a critical and transformative environmental consciousness, using Historical-Critical Pedagogy as a theoretical basis, and indicating the possibilities and limitations of working this pedagogical theory in high school. The development of this study followed the guiding paradigm of Marxist Theory that provides the contribution to Historical-Critical Pedagogy (PHC), based on Historical-Dialectical Materialism, which is inspired by the dialectical conception and in the critique of capitalist society. To achieve this objective, a didactic intervention was applied with the theme Chemical Kinetics and Waste in a class of 16 students from the 3rd year of the technical course in Biofuels integrated into the IFBA high school. Data were obtained through observation procedures, production of documents, recording of classes, transcription of audios, followed by document analysis. The didactic intervention was designed following the five moments proposed by the PHC, starting the social practice with the theme of waste, it was sought to identify what was the understanding of the students about social and environmental problems, how they understood the current system of consumption of products and waste discard to then work with texts, problematize and discuss the theme. During the instrumentation, we worked with the Chemical Kinetics content and made a visit to the landfill site in the city of Porto Seguro. The change in attitude of the students after that moment was noticeable, due to the way they understood the dimension of the problem and the collective decision to study the laws that govern the solid waste politics and to produce a documentary about the underemployment generated from the landfill site in Porto Seguro - State of Bahia. In view of the results obtained, we can understand that the students, for the most part, managed to appropriate the proposed contents and walked towards the purpose for which this educational process is intended within the critical perspective, which is that of emancipation, which aims to the transformation of our way of life, the freedom to know and generate culture, making us autonomous in our choices. It was also evident that the educational environment conducive to the development of an environmental education in its critical character is not enough within the walls of a school. Thus, bringing reality from outside the school into it is the presupposition of an approach that aims to contribute to the construction of knowledge integrated to the world in which we live. This research also showed that the time for application of the proposal can be a limiting factor and pointed to the need to rethink about the curriculum in order to problematize what really should be taught at school and what are the priority contents. Among the possibilities, this study indicated the need to work in the field of interdisciplinarity, in view of the complexity of the environmental issue, its critical, political, continuous and permanent character and, for that, we point to the need to invest in courses of teacher training in Critical Environmental Education.