Educação ambiental na engenharia ambiental à distância na UFSCar: proximidades e afastamentos à formação crítica

Abstract

The incorporation of environmental education (EE) in school curricula has shown to be a major challenge for environmental educators and educators in general. In this context, the aim of this study was to investigate the possibilities and limitations of the EE discipline, conceived from a critical perspective, for the training of students of the Environmental Engineering distance education course offered by UFSCar. The research methodology consisted of analyzing, throughout the discipline, the students conceptions regarding the concepts of EE and sustainability, as well as the application of these concepts in a project of socio-educational intervention. The analysis also included considerations on this training process from the teacher responsible for the discipline and from coordinators of the Environmental Engineering course. The results indicate that, although a single discipline cannot be deemed responsible for a critical training, the discipline provides significant contributions to the students understanding of EE as a broad, complex, critical and participatory process, mainlyin the sense of allowing a reflection on the deeper causes of the environmental crisis and on the complexity that surrounds proposals to transform such reality.