Banca de DEFESA: RAYANNE FERNANDA DA COSTA MELO

GENERATING THEMES IN SCIENCE TEACHING AS PROMOTERS OF CRITICAL-HUMANIZING ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION IN YOUTH AND ADULT EDUCATION

Critical-humanizing EE, Generative themes, Youth and Adult Education, Science teacher training.

Science teaching has been presented as a fertile field for the promotion of debates on environmental issues and should be concerned with establishing relationships with the knowledge discussed and built with the impacts reflected in society. In this context, science teaching and Environmental Education (EE) emerge as tools to face socio-environmental problems, helping individuals to build values, knowledge and skills that aim to promote changes in reality, from actions that lead to environmental conservation and sustainability. The importance of bringing EE reflections to school becomes even more relevant when the audience is composed of people who had to leave regular education to work. Generally, they are people who belong to social classes in a situation of socio-environmental vulnerability, which shows social exclusion, as is the case of most students in the Youth and Adult Education (EJA) modality. Considering that there is a relationship between what science teaching and critical-hamanizing EE seek to promote, as well as the training needs of students who are in EJA, we ask ourselves: How can environmental issues be "generative themes" in Education of Science, in order to promote a critical-humanizing Environmental Education in Youth and Adult Education? We answered that question using descriptive qualitative research, through action research and Freire's methodology. We have two elementary school science teachers from EJA (EFEJA), from a public school located in the city of São Lourenço da Mata - PE. Semi-structured interviews and observation were the methodological instruments used for data collection. Seeking to contribute positively to the educational practices for the EJA's public, we develop formative moments, in a way that allows the social actresses to experience the work of environmental themes as generating themes. For the treatment and analysis of data, we were guided by the content analysis of Bardin (2011). The results showed that there are many difficulties, pressures and challenges that arise in the teacher's journey. Challenges that lead to discouragement, dehumanization and the reproduction of naive environmental practices. In spite of that, we found the change in perspective right on the critical humanizing dimension of EE. In addition, we were able to identify that the public of the EJA, despite suffering various social injustices, seeks in education the subsidies to carry out the transformations in their reality. Therefore, critical-humanizing environmental education contributes to the formation of these individuals who have positioned themselves critically when reading their reality, giving more meaning to the contents seen in the classroom.