Environmental Education Didactics as a driver of Transformative Environmental Education in Basic Education: the Environment, this is our home

Abstract

This reflection article seeks to articulate the discussion around the idea of Environmental Education from a Transformative perspective, in the context of Environmental Education Didactics, based on the report of an experience with a Didactic Project carried out in a school in the municipal education network of Salvador/Bahia/Brazil, in 2023. We present the perspective of Environmental Didactics as a driver of Transformative Environmental Education, and this theoretical perspective is attentive to the context, the socioeconomic, socio-historical and sociopolitical conditions in which life is woven and social groups move (Melo, 2023). The theoretical and methodological legitimization framework prioritizes authors who advocate effective educational actions as fundamental to promoting sustainability, such as Freire (1997, 2001, 2019, 2020), Gadotti (2000, 2001, 2008, 2009), and Leff (2000, 2001, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2009). The reflections, based on the experience with the project, point to the focus of Environmental Education Didactics translated into knowledge, skills, values, attitudes, citizen participation, and reality change, evidencing, in turn, a conscious, engaged, and transformative civic stance among individuals and communities. By reporting on the experience described in the article, we understand that the participation of individuals and the community in the work developed by the school ensures fundamental changes for building a more harmonious and sustainable future. Thus, the role of Environmental Education Didactics, from a transformative perspective, emphasizes the 'how' and the 'why', encouraging problematization, promoting critical reflection, stimulating action and protagonism, connecting theory and practice, fostering interdisciplinarity and complexity, acting as a link between environmental knowledge and transformative action.