Invenção de um bairro sustentável a partir de uma expedição no entorno da escola

Abstract

The present work reports the investigation carried out during the development of an Environmental Education project with a focus on sustainability. The research was carried out in a state school in the city of São Sepé, RS. Initially, the proposal for creating a sustainable community was presented to students in a 5th grade class of elementary school, with the neighborhood where they live as a device for invention. The sustainability theme was chosen so that students learn to take care of the environment at home, at school and on the street and, at the same time, contribute so that they have a better understanding of the environmental issues that affect their daily lives. The research was of the intervention type, having been carried out with the objective of investigating the improvements that the students would propose to make the neighborhood sustainable. Based on the environmental and social problems observed around the school and their understanding of sustainability, the students, using their imagination, proposed a neighborhood with leisure areas, a community center to support drug addicts, a shelter for street animals, a recycling center for solid waste thrown on streets and streams. Several other proposals were presented in a model that illustrated the sustainable neighborhood they imagined. Both the model and the students' discussions and reflections point out that they have appropriated an understanding of what is important to create a sustainable community.