Programa de Educação Ambiental de Itaipu: avanços e desafios de uma experiência de enraizamento da educação ambiental na Bacia Hidrográfica do Paraná 3

Abstract

Environmental Education has a fundamental role in the current context of the socio- environmental problems that the world faces, as a potential producer of changes in the search for sustainability. Such changes must happen with the participation of the social actors that interfere in the environment, so that they can assume an active posture in search of solutions, starting from the comprehension of the reality around them, as an instrument of learning and awakening to collective action. The enviromental education program ‘Cultivating Good Water’, in Itaipu Binational has been implemented in the Bacia do Paraná 3 since 2003. This program, jointly with various partners and programs achieves participatory and transformative environmental education through processes of reflection-action-reflection, sensitizing and training people and social groups in the construction of sustainable societies. The process represents a paradigm shift, particularly for the academic community, since they are involved in the process of training environmental educators, people who were previously excluded from the formal process. This is a fact that enables capillarity to be achieved through articulation with other social actors, with greater power for percolation within the social fabric and the encounter of diverse knowledge. The project acts beyond school and formal education, and extends to non-formal and informal education, searching for its roots in the everyday life of communities, in a collective effort towards the construction of a new socio-environmental culture amongst those which exert influence over the region. This study reports this experience, bringing its methodological aspects, its progress and challenges, with the intention of contributing to other environmental education programs.