Desafios à educação ambiental a partir da percepção ambiental em uma instituição de ensino superior

Abstract

Environmental Education represents a permanent formation process of social and ethical values to relate to natural resources. The purpose was to analyze the students’ and professors’ environmental perception at a higher education institution. It was an exploratory research, which has been carried out through quantitative and qualitative analysis. The sample has comprised 115 students and 29 teachers. The results indicated that (89.7%) of the teachers considered themselves directly responsible for some environmental damage. As for the attitudes towards coping with environmental degradation, 36.2% of students were inactive. Regarding the importance of Environmental Education, (97.1%) of the teachers stated that it is necessary in all undergraduate courses. As for the environmental impacts caused to the citizens’ health, teachers (69%) and students (67.8) consider environmental problems as possible precursors. It is concluded that teachers and students present similar perception on the theme, in this sense it was also observed that environmental problems cause concerns to the research subjects.