Banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO: NATANAEL CHARLES DA SILVA

EDUCATIONAL APPROACHES TO SUSTAINABILITY IN THE DEGREE IN BIOLOGY: PERSPECTIVES THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL 

STRUCTURES IN COURSES IN THE AMAZON REGION OF PARAENSE 

Education for Sustainability; Biology Teaching; Teacher Training; Social and
Environmental Responsibility.

The present research focuses its research efforts on the educational context of the Amazon
region of Pará, contributing to the appreciation and understanding of the scenario of action,
experiences and perspectives of teacher training courses in the area of teaching biology in a
region that, in addition to the vast biodiversity, has significant importance in the sociocultural
formation of the country. Its main objective is to characterize the theoretical-methodological
approaches of Education for Sustainability in Biology Degree courses in the Amazon region
of Pará. The research adopts a qualitative and quantitative methodological perspective,
assuming a narrative approach with a trajectory divided into four phases: Phase 1: Analysis of
the PPCs of Degree in Biology courses in the Amazon region of Pará (taking five institutions
as a sample); Phase 2: Analysis of the TCCs produced by the students of the courses from
2017 to 2021; Phase 3: Application of a questionnaire to active teachers (temporary and/or
permanent) of the courses in question; and Phase 4: Application of a questionnaire to active
students with initial enrollment between the years 2017 to 2021 of the respective courses. The
qualitative analysis is carried out using the Iramuteq software version 0.7 alpha 2, while the
quantitative analysis is carried out using the Past version 4.07b and Excel 2017 software. The
results obtained so far show that SDGs 3 (health and well-being), 4 (quality education), 8
(decent work and economic growth), 15 (land life) and 16 (peace, justice and effective
institutions) are present in all PPCs of the five educational institutions studied. In contrast,
SDGs 5 (gender equality) and 11 (sustainable cities and communities) were not addressed in
any of the documents analyzed. In addition, none of the PPCs directly and explicitly presents
the application and contextualization of the term “Education for Sustainability”, although they
show expressions and excerpts that refer to its principles in a succinct manner. Of the 145
TCCs analyzed, 71.72% revealed that the most represented categories were 2 (right to
education) and 7 (right to biodiversity). This makes it possible to infer that the approach of
Education for Sustainability in these documents presents a certain conformity with the
intended academic formation and with the region in which the HEIs are inserted. However,
they fail to address important issues for human formation and the composition of a fair and
egalitarian society, such as the right to equality, respect and diversity. With regard to the
teaching approach, teachers place greater emphasis on the principles: “right to life”, “right to
equality” and “right to respect”. On the contrary, the principle “right to culture” was the one
that presented the most expressive values of disagreement. In general terms, professors
present performance perspectives that prioritize critical, contextualized and practical training
for their students, however, sheltered from a careful reformulation and updating of teaching
practice with regard to the inclusion and strengthening of cultural, social and cultural
dimensions environmental, so that a greater appreciation of cultural, traditional and socio-
environmental relations with the environment in which they are inserted can be presented.