How educommunication can expand and qualify climate education practices in Basic Education in Brazil

• Grant number: 23/08836-2
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Research in Public Policies
• Start date: February 01, 2024
• End date: January 31, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Communications
• Principal Investigator: Ismar de Oliveira Soares
• Grantee: Ismar de Oliveira Soares
• Host Institution: Escola de Comunicações e Artes (ECA). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Carmen Lúcia Melges Elias Gattás ; Claudemir Edson Viana ; Edson Abreu de Castro Grandisoli ; Evandro Albiach Branco ; GLAUCIA FORNAZARI ; Maria Henriqueta Andrade Raymundo ; Patricia Mie Matsuo ; Pedro Roberto Jacobi ; Rachel Trajber ; Rosana Louro Ferreira Silva ; Sueli Angelo Furlan ; Thais Brianezi Ng
• Associated scholarship(s): 24/18909-0 - Impacts experienced and perceived by managers of schools participating in the mother project, BP.EP; 24/19955-5 - How can educommunication enhance public science communication?, BP.JC; 24/18543-5 - Impacts experienced and perceived by students from schools participating in the mother project, BP.EP; 24/05228-4 - How can the epistemological and empirical convergences of environmental education and educommunication qualify climate education public policies in Brazil?, BP.PD; 24/04241-7 - How can educommunication enhance public science communication?, BP.JC

Abstract

The public problem to be faced by this research project and by the public policy resulting from it is the little knowledge of a large part of educators and students of Basic Education in Brazil regarding the climate emergency and how to mobilize to face it, partly caused by the timid and prescriptive approach that the theme receives in school curricula. In Brazil, there is a certain historical distance between environmental education and the climate sciences, which means that the existing practices of so-called climate education, in addition to being insufficient in quantity and coverage, tend to be content-oriented, simplistic, and decontextualized. This challenge is also highlighted by the international literature, which points out that environmental education campaigns related to climate change tend to treat the public as automatic decipherers or as simple means to achieve a certain end. The hypothesis to be tested in this research is that educommunicative practices contribute to the critical and creative appropriation of knowledge about the climate emergency by school communities, generating local action. The central question to be investigated is in the title: how can educommunication expand and qualify climate education practices in Basic Education in Brazil?There are still few studies on the interface between public policies on educommunication and environmental education and on the potential of educommunication to expand and qualify social participation. This research contributes, therefore, to expanding scientific knowledge about the relationship between educommunication, environmental education and public management and to devise, test, evaluate, systematize and disseminate innovative social technologies for climate education based on educommunicative practices in the Elementary School stage, that face the challenges imposed both by complex socio-environmental issues and the increase in misinformation and help to promote the mobilization of school communities in defense of their territories. In other words, if successful, this project will contribute not only to the idealization, testing and evaluation of a climate education project through educommunication in the São Paulo Municipal Education Network, but also to the formulation of federal public policies on environmental education that promote more dialogic and significant aspects of the climate emergency in the Elementary School stage - which complies with Article 12 of the Paris Agreement. (AU)