The Use of Mobile Devices in Environmental Education

Abstract

Digital media plays an essential role in the area of Environmental Education. This study intends to propose an activity involving media in environmental education. The participants came from a Technical Teacher Training school in the municipality of Cabo Frio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This city has been suffering with environmental damages and precariousness in the supply of water and sewage treatment, in addition to the excessive amount of solid waste thrown on the beaches in the high season. Among these, coconut waste. Faced with this situation, a thematic proposal was developed with the students, comprising an interactive lecture about different ways of reusing solid coconut waste and about the harmful implications when it is released to the environment. In order to accompany learning, a playful activity was performed using the mobile device feature in the Kahoot! application. Students were then asked to answer a questionnaire in an interactive and collaborative way. It is therefore possible to understand the success of this kind of playful activities and its possibilities, associated to games using mobile devices, in the context of the teaching-learning process. It can be concluded that the media-education through mobile devices improves cognitive development, autonomy, creativity and enables an eminent awareness about social-environmental problems.