O ensino de ambiente e saúde em escolas públicas inseridas em diferentes contextos no município de Alegrete, RS

Abstract

The relation between Environment and Health is of worldwide importance and over the decades advances in science and knowledge made this relation closer and consolidated within different societies. In this context, a new paradigm is established in the field of public health, which seeks to reframe concepts and perspectives on the link between the environment and health, as well as its influence on people's quality of life. In 1946, the WHO defined health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not just as the absence of disease or illness, potentiating the new paradigm that was under construction. From this, several international and national events that aimed at quality of life, focused on defining the conditioning factors for the maintenance of health, including the environmental and sanitary condition, economic and social status of the population, establishing strategies to achieve fundamental rights equity for a dignified and healthy life. One of the strategies was to instruct countries to elaborate policies that integrate these issues in educational development, where, in Brazil, the National Environmental Education Policy was established, in addition to the inclusion of environment and health themes as transversal themes in the National Curriculum Parameters. Since 2018, the Brazilian education scenario has integrated new educational normative documents, which are the Common National Curriculum Base and their respective state curricular references, aiming to provide essential curricular content to be developed in the different areas of knowledge, in all education networks in the country, respecting regional characteristics. Therefore, the present study had as main objective the conceptions and the approach analysis on the environment and health thematic in public middle schools inserted in different contexts at Alegrete-RS, as well as the guidelines for these themes in importante educational guiding documents. The research methodology is characterized as qualitative, exploratory and descriptive, which uses documentary research techniques, outlined by a case study. For this research, 4 municipal schools were randomly selected and located in different socio-environmental contexts, involving the participation of students and teachers from all areas of knowledge from the 9th grade of middle school. The data collection instrument consisted of a semi-structured questionnaire, adapted to the survey method, containing open and closed questions on the research theme, in which for open questions, Bardin's contente analysis technique (2016) was used. The study diagnosed that the teaching of environment and health is not being promoted and addressed efficiently in the educational guiding documents analyzed, with the theme being mostly neglected or limited in its unrelated versions. The lack of clarity in linking the themes in guiding documents, as well as in the initial and continuing education of teachers, considering its transversality, resulted in confusing conceptions of social actors, as well as a limited, disconnected and decontextualized approach.