CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES IN EDUCATION:

Relationships between environmental issues and the emergency of pandemics

Abstract

The pandemic, caused by the Sarcov-2 virus, called Covid-19, has caused environmental degradation. According to the UNEP Report (2020) there is a direct relationship between environmental destruction and the development of zoonotic diseases and points out that maintaining the predatory mode of exploitation of the environment will imply no more frequent occurrence of new pandemics. In this sense, it was considered necessary that the educational processes include debates on the understanding not only of the scientific knowledge involved in production technologies and their effects on the natural environment, but also as social, political and economics involved. This need led to the structuring of an Extension Project, a partnership between two Federal Education Institutions, aimed at expanding and improving the understanding of the pandemic phenomenon through online lectures (lives) with researchers and resistance groups committed to environmental preservation. The objective of this research contemplates, from the implementation of the extension project, the interpretation of the phenomenon: the dialogues participated during the presentations, made by researchers and leaders of resistance groups, on the relationship between environmental issues and those caused by pandemics. After the perception of this phenomenon, the research question was formulated, which guided the understanding look: the discussions stifled by the speakers and the constitution of controversial themes involving the relationship between environmental impacts and threatened by pandemics. The analysis resulted in five controversial themes, as well as a suggestion of ways of mediating these themes at school based on Freirianos budgets and associated with the STS educational perspective.