Diga-me como andas e te direis que rastro tens: a pegada ecológica como ferramenta de ensino para modificação da percepção de impactos ambientais

Abstract

Environmental Education, preview for at all levels of education, needs to break with conventional characteristics and adopt a position that serves to transform society by incorporating new forms of education. In order to promote the general skills introduced by the BNCC, such as sustainable development and care for the Planet, educational activities demand methods that are able to involve students, demonstrating the importance and scope of the environmental issue. One of them is the Ecological Footprint, which stands out as a tool capable of measuring the environmental impact of human beings on the Earth. For this research, the main objective was to evaluate whether the ecological footprint, as a teaching tool, is capable of causing a change in the perception of environmental impacts, for which it was necessary to develop and validate a questionnaire capable of measuring this variation. As a reference, we used the definitions of Wackernagel and Reels (creators of the Ecological Footprint), as well as the questionnaire validation literature. The methodology was based on the qualitative-quantitative approach, with the target audience being students of the first semester of the course of nature sciences at a federal university in the Rio Grande do Sul - Brazil. Data were collected through a duly elaborated and validated questionnaire. Data were analyzed by content and statistical analysis. The main results were the elaboration and validation of a questionnaire capable of demonstrating the change in the respondents' environmental perception, the subject of a published article. It was found that the respondents' environmental perception is still not very significant, with the themes of garbage, water waste and energy saving being the most mentioned by students. In general, the use of the Ecological Footprint tool proved capable of modifying the participants' environmental perception. Finally, it was understood that the findings raised in this study can be used in the practice of teachers in science teaching and in other educational contexts. And yet, as a social contribution, this study enables a broad debate on environmental issues and the environmental impact that human beings cause on the environment, using the Ecological Footprint as a theme.