Environmental Education at school: a discussion about instrumental rationality and interdisciplinarity

Abstract

This article presents preliminary findings of an ongoing research that aims to explore Environmental Education through pedagogical practices in the discipline of mathematics. We collected data on a group of four ninth grade classes of an elementary public school located in urban area of the city of ​​São Lourenço do Oeste - SC. In this setting, 79 students answered a semi-structured questionnaire on environment and environmental education. The preliminary results suggest a convergence between these data and those obtained in other studies carried out with public school teachers in the same region. Thus indicating a comprehensive alignment between pedagogical practices adopted by public school teachers in (formal) Environmental Education, and student’s environmental conceptions. Regarding the theoretical aspects, the article discusses the importance of interdisciplinary in the pedagogical posture of the teacher in order to foster the treatment of Environmental Education in the school context.