Critique of environmental education in geography teaching: discussion and pedagogical proposals

Cocato, Guilherme Pereira

doi:10.11606/issn.2179-0892.geousp.2021.158138

Abstract

This work is driven by theoretical and methodological questions posed by dialectical materialism about common environmental approaches to geography education. This leads us to critically evaluate environmental issues, geography teaching itself, the educator’s role, and to finding further possibilities of didactic activities. Our primary goal is to evaluate such educational practices when dealing with environmental problems, considering these same guidelines. We then propose some examples of pedagogical activities aligned with critical and enforceable geographic education, guided by a substantially revised bibliography. Here, environmental education is opposed to conservative practices and some alternatives are shown. We accomplish this by putting forward three pedagogical proposals that are part of high school environmental education. They are suitable proposals for different educational realities, as they require the active involvement of educators and students. The discussion and proposals must be translated into effective practice based on each students’ everyday knowledge and experiences.

Keywords: Environmental education; Geography Education; Historical-Critical Pedagogy; Materialism; Environmental degradation

[TFN3] source: Gasparin (2011, p. 159).

Practice (Current Development Level)	Theory (Immediate Development Level)			Practice (New Current Development Level)
Initial Social Practices	Problematization	Instrumentalization	Catharsis	Final Social Practice
1 List of objectives and content	1 Identification and later discussion of the major problems highlighted by social practice	1 Educator and learners actions to the construction of knowledge. Student-object of knowledge relationship through teaching mediation	1 Synthesis’s theoretical elaboration	1 Student intentions. Manifestation of the new practical posture
2 Everyday life experience of the content:
• what does the student already know?
• challenge: what else would he like to know?	2 The content’s dimensions to be worked on	2 Human and material resources.	2 Synthesis’s practical expression	2 Student actions. New social practice of content, as a function of social transformation

	chapters or sections	percentual (%)
Address environmental issues in a comprehensive, in-depth, and satisfactorily manner	6	23.1
Textbooks present a conservative approach with insufficient information, just describing the major topics of environmental education	11	42.3
Textbooks do not present any information or even mentioning socio-environmental related themes as nature’s degradation or another recurring content in present-day environmental education	9	34.6
Total	26	100