Among many subjects that could be debated by environmental education, we could mention the preservation of natural resources. We define the Cerrado, which is a biome largely degraded by human actions and part of the natural environment of Botucatu SP, as theme for an environmental education project. With the intention of creating special ecological attention that aims at the integration of natural and urban environments, this project, that was done with students from the 8 grade of Fundamental School, was concerned with the creation of an Ecological Track in the Cerrado. All the processes of planning, realization and analysis of the track were participative: the students investigated the Cerrado features, identified main species of the biome, discussed the conservation conditions of the area and took decisions about the track's construction as an educative resource. During this process, they questioned themselves about the interaction between community and the environment, joining environmental knowledge and educative action, concluding that this is an important instrument in reflections about the social and ecological themes. The group had the opportunity of using the track with early childhood education children, characterizing it as a didactic-pedagogic resource within the "visitors-environment approach".
Participative research; Environmental education; Ecological track; Cerrado