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Environmental Education in the Curriculum: A Space for the Formation of Environmental Educators

Celeste Dias Amorim*, Milton Ferreira da Silva Júnior, Luiz Artur dos Santos Cestari

University of Santa Cruz, Ilhéus, Bahia, Brazil

Abstract: This article aims to discuss the implementation of Environmental Education in undergraduate curricula from the Brazilian legal framework (Constitution 88, National Environmental Education Policy, National Curricular Guidelines for Environmental Education, National Curricular Guidelines). Space for formation of environmental educators was provided, and it was inferred in the role of leadership in cultural and social change, which should be assumed by higher education institutions in the process of technological development. Besides the preparation of students and provision of information that can lead to a critical appropriation of knowledge, attitudes and values: political, social and historical, in terms of a sustainable and fair society.

Keywords: curricular reform, resolution CNE 02/2012, Resolution CNE 02/2015

Citation: Celeste Dias Amorim, Milton Ferreira da Silva Júnior, Luiz Artur dos Santos Cestari, Environmental Education in the Curriculum: A Space for the Formation of Environmental Educators. American Journal of Educational Research, 5 (7). 739-746. January 2017. doi:10.12691/education-5-7-7

1. Introduction

In the 1970s, the first step was taken by the United Nations (UN) to international environmental systematization through the creation of a global environmental policy with the holding of the Conference on the Human Environment. [1] Among the actions, stood out the "Environmental Education Program, aimed at educating the citizen to understand and combat the environmental crisis in the world". [2]

However, a systematized orientation to an international Environmental Education (EE) program came only at the International Meeting on Environmental Education promoted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the United Nations Program for the Environment (PNUMA), when the Integrated Environmental Education Program (PIEA) was created, and a document called the Belgrade Charter was generated. This letter establishes principles and guidelines on EE, suggesting that it have to be worked on continuously, inter and multidisciplinary way, geared to regional differences and the national interest. It proposes the discussion of themes that are identified as the causes of poverty and social inequality, such as: pollution, hunger, exploitation, domination, illiteracy, among others. This discursive proposal aimed at a new global ethic, where any nation developed at the cost of another, but for that, it would be essential to restructure the educational systems and processes. [1,2]

However, the culmination of the implementation of the PIEA, in an international consensus of the objectives for EE, only occurred at the 1st World Conference on Environmental Education held in Tbilisi, USSR, by Unesco, which reaffirmed the purpose of EE, [1] where the central concern is to globally help the population in the awareness process, favoring access to knowledge, the state of mind, skills, and motivations, thus providing favorable environments for participation and engagement in the attempt to Solve current problems and prevent their expansion or repetition. [2]

The Tbilisi conference established for EE the objectives for social groups to acquire a sensitivity, a set of values and feelings of concern about environmental issues, which also involves the problems and conflicts associated with them, so that these groups and / Or individuals can have: Consciousness, Knowledge, Activities, Competence, and Participation. [3]

In Brazil, the discourse on EE began to appear in official documents in the 1980s, with the "Information Project on Environmental Education"; In 1981 Law No. 6.938 established the National Environmental Policy, which considers EE as an essential principle for improving the quality of life; the Federal Constitution of 1988, in art. 225, § 1º, item VI, establishes as an incumbency of the public power: "To promote environmental education at all levels of education and public awareness for the preservation of the environment", but only in 1996, EE began to be discoursed as a Transversal theme in the curriculum of Elementary and High School, with the implementation of the National Curricular Parameters (PCN), developed by the Ministry of Education. [4,5,6]

“In the National Curricular Parameters, the contents of the Environment were integrated into the areas in a cross-cutting relationship, so as to permeate the entire educational practice and, at the same time, create a global and comprehensive vision of the environmental issue by visualizing the physical and social-historical aspects , as well as the articulations between the local and planetary scale of these problems”. [7]

Therefore, in the late 1980s, the rise of various indexes, such as environmental degradation, social inequalities, and the destruction of traditional communities, led to the thinking of the environmental issue, and EE “has come to be seen as an ongoing process of learning in which the individual and groups become aware of the environment through the production and transmission of knowledge, values, skills and attitudes”. [8] The author then affirms that this period was marked by the critical and liberating pedagogy of Paulo Freire, focused on human formation. [1]

2. Acting in Environmental Education

"it is necessary to structure participatory processes that favor the overcoming of consolidated power relations and guarantee the exercise of citizenship, especially those who are in situations of greater socio-environmental vulnerability". [8]

Thus, it solidifies the need for citizens participation as a determining factor to work with EE to explain, confront, and overcome the conflicts and contradictions of society. [1] This participation is characterized by principles in a continuous and cyclical process of EE that involves understanding, responsibility, competence, and sensitivity around citizenship (Figure 1, adapted from Sato [9]).

Figure 1. General Principles of Environmental Education

With a reflection on EE, some authors consider it as a device that could lead to the formation of an "environmental citizen society", but that requires not only an ecological plan to maintain the ecosystem but, above all, the reassessment of political and cultural values. While remembering, "[...] systematic and organized knowledge in curriculum are not the only ones to generate skills and competences. The responsibility belongs to all, for the search of citizenship that makes possible the construction”. [10]

In a very clear way, Enrique Leffpoints to the existence of an inequality that, in order to overcome it, there is a need for social change, in which there is a relationship between EE and citizenship. [11] He warns not to incorporate environmental rationality without questioning the construction of knowledge and the educational system in the teaching-learning process, because without this concern, its insertion will continue in the same way as the ideological apparatus of the State that reproduces inequality, unsustainability and authoritarianism, using these ideological formations to shape social subjects and thus continue/reinforce dominant social structures.[11] On the contrary, environmental rationality must permeate a "process of emancipation of citizenship and social change", [11] which requires a popular participation that is present in the decisions and self-management that permeate their living conditions and production, which question regulation, social control and centralizing planning of the State, as well as the management of educational services.

In this perspective, EE goes through the relations from cultural change to social change, since it "can be both an instrument of human socialization enlarged to Nature, and an ideological instrument of reproduction of social conditions". [12] Environmental change occurs through relations of cultural and social change, where EE can be a device that promotes such a relationship (Figure 2 [12]).

Figure 2. Dimensions of Environmental Education

It is necessary here to remember that the relations of cultural and social change also pass through the space of knowledge that in the modern paradigm are transmitted surrounded by aspects related to the social, political, and economic phenomena of globalization. In these conflicts of interest, the expansion and free expression of the actors can constitute a planetary ethic, in which there is a mutual development permeating the relation individual/society/species. [13] While remembering that "We do not have the keys that would open the door to a better future. We do not know the path traced [...]. We can, however, make explicit our purposes: the search for hominization in humanization, for access to earthly citizenship ". [13]

That is why it is necessary for the individual to go beyond. In order to broaden their citizenship, they must seek interaction, the fulfillment of themselves and the other, because, taking care of themselves that one can take care of the other. [14]

The formation of someone goes through this experience with the other, through the feeling of belonging to a group (s), because the practice of caring for oneself, not in an individualistic way, but a caring inserted in the social context, in which, in a way , his conduct, his thought, his way of being, "the way in which the individual must be constituted as a moral object" is inserted, [15] but also, It enables one to perform with the help of the other. "Caring for oneself [...] then appears as an intensification of social relations". [15]

The social relations established by the subject in different spaces (family, school, work, community), "allow the individual to have a critical perception of himself and of society. [...] The relationships established in each educational field, formal or not, constitute pedagogical spaces for the exercise of citizenship". [16]

Self-care is born within networks with different combinations of relationships that vary according to each group and/or means. As for the author, self-care is not given in a universal order or form, since it manifests itself, and it is affirmed by the feeling of belonging to a particular group. [14] "It is not like being human as such, it is not simply as belonging to the human community, even if this belonging is very important, that self-care can manifest itself and, above all, be practiced". [14]

However, in order to create an ethic, it is urgent to strengthen the pedagogical spaces that contribute to the recognition of the Self for the benefit of the subject, and not to the detriment of the subject. In this perspective, formal institutions play an important role in the challenge of consolidating a substantive and direct citizenship, through the daily establishment of democratic practices that promote the capacity for critical reflection on their living environment, consolidating the 'culture of citizenship' in local, regional, and international levels. [16]

In this case, it is education that promotes the opening of the mind to receive the new. It is a transmission link. Thus, it plays an important role in the formation of someone, since, as its object is the formation of man, it is important that the "culture of citizenship" be promoted and consolidated. [13]

In this context, the relationship between man and society goes through a very strong link between subject and citizenship. It is this relationship that will determine societies as democratic or authoritarian. According to Morin [13], the first "works through individual liberties and the responsibility of individuals," who are citizens and express their desires and interests, and the second acts by colonizing "individuals, who are not more than subjects".

3. The National Policy for Environmental Education in Undergraduate Curricula

Focused on this relation to Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), they seek in their mission the formation of professionals-citizens, who at the moment this formation calls for formation of professionals-eco-citizens. In this sense, the National Curricular Guidelines for Environmental Education (DCNEA) established by the National Education Council (CNE) through Resolution no. 2, of June 15, 2012, opens this academic space for the possibility of environmental insertion in its curriculum when brings in the sole paragraph of art. 8º that "In the courses, programs and projects of undergraduate, (post)graduate, and extension, and in the fields and activities focused on the methodological aspect of Environmental Education, it is possible to create specific curricular component". [17]

And, in art. 10 says that HEIs must return to management and teaching, research, and extension actions to the principles and objectives of EE, as well as in art. 11 shows that the curricula of initial and continuing education must contain the socio-environmental dimension, which means a search for university environmentalization in favor of the environment, with higher education having to adapt to the new curricular requirements to meet the DCNEA in the light of its PDI , PPI and the Pedagogical Project of the Course (PPC) and in the case of the degree courses, also adequacy to the National Curricular Guidelines that brings a new way of thinking to the initial formation in a higher level education. [17,18]

Resolution no. 2/2012 of the CNE in the third title deals specifically with the curricular organization, where it reinforces Art. 8º in the sole paragraph of Art. 16 that establishes that in the curriculum of Higher Education other forms of insertion may be admitted, however, considering the nature of the courses. [17] At the time the discussion previously presented is clearly identified in Art. 17:

“Article 17. Considering the knowledge and values of sustainability, the diversity of life manifestations, established principles and objectives, curricular planning and the management of the educational institution should:

I - stimulate:

a) integrated, multidimensional vision of the environmental field, considering the study of biogeographic diversity and its vital ecological processes, political, social, economic and psychological influences, among others, on the relationship between society, environment, nature, culture, science, and technology;

b) critical thinking through philosophical, scientific, socioeconomic, political, and historical studies, in the perspective of socio-environmental sustainability, valuing participation, cooperation and ethics;

c) recognition and appreciation of the diversity of the multiple scientific and popular knowledge and knowledge about the environment, especially indigenous peoples and traditional communities;

d) experiences that promote recognition, respect, responsibility and careful living with living beings and their habitat;

e) reflection on socioeconomic inequalities and their environmental impacts, mainly on vulnerable groups, with a view to achieving environmental justice; [...]

II – to contribute to: [...]

a) the revision of fragmented school practices seeking to construct other practices that consider the interference of the environment in the quality of life of human societies in the various local, regional and planetary dimensions;

b) establishing relationships between climate change and the current model of production, consumption, social organization, aiming at the prevention of environmental disasters and the protection of communities;

c) the promotion of care and responsibility with the different forms of life, respect for people, cultures and communities;

d) the recognition of knowledge related to environmental health, including in the work environment, with emphasis on promoting health to improve the quality of life;

e) the construction of planetary citizenship from the critical and transformational perspective of the environmental challenges to be faced by current and future generations.

III – to promote:

a) observation and study of nature and its functioning systems to enable the discovery of how life forms relate to each other and natural cycles interconnect and integrate with one another;

b) pedagogical actions that allow subjects to critically understand the ethical and political dimension of social and environmental issues, both in the individual sphere and in the public sphere;

c) work of commissions, groups or other forms of collective action favorable to the promotion of education between peers, for participation in the planning, execution, evaluation, and management of intervention projects and actions of socioenvironmental sustainability in the educational institution and in the community, with a focus on prevention of risks, protection and preservation of the environment and human health, and the construction of sustainable societies”. [17]

It is important to remember that with the intention of HEI to meet the specificities of the National Environmental Education Program (PNEA), it was manifested 12 years ago, when, after participating in the first Training Seminar of the Let's Take Care of Brazil with Schools Program, occurred In the period from July 26 to 31, 2004, the participating HEIs published a letter informing them that they have been participating in the strengthening of the EE program and policy in order to build EE in schools and in the community in a permanent process. It is worth mentioning that one of the institutions that signs the letter of the universities is the State University of Feira de Santana, the only Bahian representative in this process.

Thus, in view of the commitment assumed by the Universities, the representatives of these HEIs have assumed the commitment to contribute to the continuity of the actions of the Let's Take Care of Brazil with Schools program, which are contemplated in the following lines of action: Strengthening of the National Environmental Education Policy (Law no. 9795/1999); [19] Continuing education in Basic Education; Projects and experiences of Environmental Education.

In the same way, these representatives undertake to participate actively in strengthening the activities foreseen in the fifth axis of COEA/MEC: EE in higher education, considering:

• “Law 9795/99 in its article 11 states that 'the environmental dimension must be included in teacher formation curricula, at all levels and in all disciplines', this being a specific attribution of HEI;

• the relevant role of universities in the training of teachers and professionals in the various field of knowledge, as well as in the development of research and extension;

• the importance of the contribution of universities in the theoretical and methodological foundation, in this process of formation of the Let's Take Care of Brazil with Schools program;

• the social commitment of the universities with the different regions where they are inserted and their capillarity in the national territory;

• the articulation movement of the Universities for the consolidation of the University Network of Environmental Education Programs (RUPEA) and the Environmental Education Studies Group of the National Association of Research and Postgraduate in Education (ANPEd);

• that many of the components of Youth Councils and Non-Governmental Organizations are university-based;

• that the National Forum of Extension Pro-Rectors defined the environment field as one of the field that have been worked in all Brazilian public universities (federal and state)”. [20]

It can be seen that Resolution No. 2/2012 of the CNE brings the HEI to act as agents that promote cultural and social change, a commitment already made in 2004. However, it is understood that to change it is necessary, "[...] create new alternatives and develop diversified ethical criteria and procedures to survive barbarism. It is necessary to resist and keep alive the hope of transformation, in an increasingly exclusive and violent world". [21]

However, any cultural change implies a certain period of maturation, and above all, acceptance of new ideas and new realities, which shake and threaten the old and heavy structures historically consolidated, which establishes in the Higher Education a period of transition, because the human being who breaks the link with nature is now responsible for consolidating the new posture, for creative innovation in the search for harmonization. [22] Thus, "human intervention in the environment seems to synthesize elements for the understanding of the environmental problem, but also synthesizes, by its intentional character, the educational problem". [23] Therefore, it is necessary to understand the relationship man-nature and education, in which, this process occurs in two ways: the first, by all men, in which the relationship is socially and politically constructed, the second occurs within the Social relations. [24]

The relationship between man and nature is determined by nature itself and by reason, the first is recognized as natural, occupies the centrality of social life, and the second as rational conception prepares the individual for life in society; rational use of nature, "here it is no longer the natural nature that occupies the center of social life, but empirical, mechanical, positive, rational and Cartesian science", [23] confers absolute dominion on the holder of knowledge: the human being, the educators must transmit this knowledge mechanically. [23] This relation brings to man the following consequence: "the domination of man over nature", [23] there is also the submission of education and society the ideology of reason. But not only reason confers the environmental problem, but also natural, while both "disregard the concrete influence of the socio-historical aspects of these problem". [23] Considering these aspects in the historical perspective leads to the "understanding of both the current environmental crisis and its overcoming”. [23]

For Russeau, “the representation of education as natural, indicates education with the function of reintegrating the individual into nature". [23] Thus, "In the natural conception, the function of educators is, overvaluing sensitive experiences, to suggest submission of the subject to the natural domain of nature", [23] to repress domination of man over nature. In this relationship educators are mediators between the interaction of subjects with their natural and social environment, thus making them educational tools. Therefore, educational content must articulate nature, history, and knowledge. [23]

EE is in this sense, "built in and by the new paradigm of the responsibility of human action in nature and in society". [23] Comes up, then, the need to overcome the paradigm of modern science. We have at the beginning of this century an urgency to find new alternatives, however, our thoughts and/or actions are attached to a culture, which determine us, and we are determined by it. Thus, rules and norms are said by societies and incorporated by communities. However, the author warns that they are increasingly incorporated in order to "adapt and unify procedures and criteria, which not only distinguish the peoples, but also, above all, bring the members of a group closer together". [21]

Thus, faced with the complexity of our society, a professional who works in EE needs to have in-depth knowledge and develop inter and transdisciplinary vision and thinking. This aspect is presented the principle of the epistemology of complexity, in which the part is in the whole as the whole is in the part, that is, the complexity theory of Edgar Morin. [13,25] Each part, on the one hand, preserves its own and individual qualities, but, on the other hand, it contains the totality of the real.[22] Therefore, it can be said that the individual is in society, which in turn is in the individual, or rather, the man is part of a community, and this is part of the man with its norms, language and culture that, at the same time, is the product of this society and producer of its maintenance. [22] Thus, Morin understands the human being in its complexity, capable of self-organizing, of establishing relationships. And for the author, it is in the relations of otherness that one finds "self-transcendence", whereby the subject will overcome, infer and modify his environment in a process of "self-organization", in which the "ethical dimension reflects their values, choices, and perceptions of the world". [21]

For this reason, compartmentalized knowledge without connection to the interactions of larger systems results in viewing many interdependent changes, such as separate actions and sometimes competing with one another. As a result of this segmentation, what are found, then, are partial solutions, inefficient, or worse, with more damaging consequences for people and the environment at present or even for future generations. [22]

Thus, some important aspects for the formation of an environmental educator such as their values, their ethics, their practice, their self-knowledge need special attention. Such a professional needs to develop in his inner environment what he would like to see in the external environment. He needs to recognize its limits to know and respect the difficulties that human organizations face in their daily life, being a multiplier of connections for the man / nature / society / education relations, that is, the role of mediating the interaction of the subjects with the natural, social and educational environment. [22]

"This kind of work involves profound changes that are intrinsically linked to the human heart and soul. Not to the intellect. And the development of this human ability to ‘reconnect’ does not occur through the acquisition of degrees or diplomas". [26]

We are, therefore, alerted to the fact that our Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) still bring to their students (future educators) a naive conscience, which does not prepare them for the environmental problem, which is recognized by resolution no. 2/2012 of the CNE.

“Art. 6 Environmental Education should adopt an approach that considers the interface between nature, socioculture, production, work, consumption, overcoming the depoliticized, uncritical, naive and naturalistic view still very present in the pedagogical practice of educational institutions” [emphasis added]. [17]

At the same time, in Arts. 2º, 3º and 5º of CNE resolution no. 2/2012, brings EE as one of the dimensions of education that must assume an educational practice in the construction of knowledge.

As also, in article 1º of CNE resolution no. 2/2012 "establishes the National Curricular Guidelines for Environmental Education to be observed by the education systems and their institutions of Basic Education and Higher Education", as well as "The National Curricular Guidelines for Basic Education in all its stages and modalities recognize the relevance and obligatory nature of Environmental Education". [17]

On the other hand, CNE resolution no. 02/2015, which "Defines the National Curricular Guidelines for initial formation at the higher level education (undergraduate courses, pedagogical training courses for graduates and second degree courses) and for continuing education", [18] although it does bring in Arts. 8º and 12º the need for research and knowledge in the environmental field, does not bring in the formation of the curriculum the environmental focus in the training of the educator, making only an allusion in § 4º of Art. 13 that the organization of the curricular matrix must articulate with the dimensions provided for in Art. 12.

Therefore, if it is seen as a focus that articulates, which is to say that the National Curricular Guidelines for Higher Education does not deal with the environmental issue as a curricular component in the formation. In this case, how will future professionals be able to act on the environmental issue according to National Curricular Guidelines for Basic Education if they are not prepared for this? For it is to act in the National Curriculum Guidelines for Basic Education that the National Curriculum Guidelines for Higher Education should prepare the future professional (educator and / or manager) of Basic Education, while also being able to enter as a professional (educator and / or manager) in higher education, so without change the vicious cycle will remain.

“Art. 8º (A) graduated from the initial formation courses at the higher level education should therefore be able to: [...]

VIII - demonstrate awareness of diversity, respecting the differences of environmental-ecological, ethnic-racial, gender, generational, social, religious, special needs, sexual diversity, among others nature [emphasis added]; [...]

XI - to carry out research that provides knowledge about students and their socio-cultural reality, on teaching and learning processes, on different environmental-ecological sites, on curricular proposals and on the organization of educational work and pedagogical practices, among others [emphasis added]; [...]

Art. 12. The initial training courses, respecting the national diversity and the pedagogical autonomy of the institutions, will be constituted of the following nuclei: [...]

I) research and study of the relationships between education and work, education and diversity, human rights, citizenship, environmental education, among other central issues of contemporary society [emphasis added]; [...]

D) Application to the field of education of contributions and knowledge, such as pedagogical, philosophical, historical, anthropological, environmental-ecological, psychological, linguistic, sociological, political, economic, cultural [emphasis added];

[...] STRUCTURE AND CURRICULUM

Art. 13. Initial teacher formation courses for basic education in higher education, in undergraduate courses related to education, organized in specialized fields, by curricular component or by field of knowledge and / or interdisciplinary, [...] are structured through the guarantee of common national basis of the curricular guidelines.

[...]

§ 2º The formation courses should guarantee in the curricula specific contents of the respective area of knowledge or interdisciplinary, its fundamentals and methodologies, as well as contents related to the fundamentals of education, courses in the field of public policies and education management, its fundamentals and methodologies, human rights, ethnic-racial diversity, gender, sexual, religious, generational, Brazilian Sign Language (Libras), special education and educational rights of adolescents and young people in compliance with socio-educational measures. [...]

§ 4. The criteria for organizing the curricular matrix, as well as the allocation of curricular times and spaces, are expressed in axis around which dimensions to be contemplated are articulated, as foreseen in article 12 of this Resolution [emphasis added]. [...]

Art. 14. Pedagogical training courses for graduates who are not licensed in education, of an emergency and provisional nature, [...]. [...]

§ 2º The formation courses should guarantee in the curricula specific contents of the respective field of knowledge or interdisciplinary, its fundamentals and methodologies, as well as contents related to the fundamentals of education, courses in the field of public policies and education management, its fundamentals and methodologies, human rights, ethnic-racial diversity, gender, sexual, religious, generational, Brazilian Sign Language (Libras), special education and educational rights of adolescents and young people in compliance with socio-educational measures. [...]

Art. 15. Second degree education courses [...], depending on the equivalence between the original major and the new undergraduate degree. [...]

§ 3º The formation courses should guarantee in the curricula specific contents of the respective field of knowledge or interdisciplinary, its fundamentals and methodologies, as well as contents related to the fundamentals of education, courses in the field of public policies and education management, its fundamentals and methodologies, human rights, ethnic-racial diversity, gender, sexual, religious, generational, Brazilian Sign Language (Libras), special education and educational rights of adolescents and young people in compliance with socio-educational measures”. [18]

Reason that these discussions should be inserted within the HEIs in the light of resolutions no. 02 of 2012 and 2015 dealing, respectively, with the insertion of EE and curricular reform focusing on the degree, emphasizing that HEIs will have a deadline of 2 (two) years, starting July 1, 2015, to adapt its courses to the new resolution, [18] which means that July 2017 will be the deadline for national curricular reforms to occur in undergraduate degrees directed to formation of educators. Noting that for Edgar Morin the adaptation of HEIs is a necessity, they must "adapt to the needs of contemporary society and carry out their mission over the centuries of conservation, transmission and enrichment of a cultural heritage, without which we would not be more than machines of production and consumption". [25]

4. The Formation of the Environmental Educator - Curricular Reform

"To think about the organization of EE in universities, we must also think about the training of teachers educators of environmental educators", [23] that is, think about the ecological subjects¹ who will work in their communities. With this in mind, starting from 2012, the National Education Council establishes resolution no. 02, strengthening the idea that the university has a responsibility on the subjects/professionals that are formed by it, and what will be cultivated in the community under your cultural gaze.

The university has a dual function: the first is that of adapting and integrating scientific modernity; the second is to respond by formation, observing the fundamental needs of the human being. As also, "to provide a metaprofessional, metatechnical teaching, that is, a culture". [25] In this case, the author asks if "the University must adapt to society or society should adapt to the University?". He notes that this issue will lead to complementarity, antagonism and a circle that must be productive. Continuing to dialogue, Morin warns that in the university there may occur not only the intention of "modernizing culture", but also of "culturalizing the modernity", so it "calls society to adopt its message and its norms," but in order to defend, illustrate, and promote, "in the social and political world, values intrinsic to university culture". [25]

In postgraduate courses, the university privileges research and devalues teaching and extension activities, and in undergraduate this problem is even greater. Thus, the acting, the posture of the university is what will establish how will be the training of educators, this attitude is "given in an unsystematic way, practically summarizing the three types of action disconnected: treatment of environmental themes in related disciplines, optional discipline of environmental education and pedagogical educational training ". [23]

In the university environment, the formation of environmental educators will be possible through the construction of educational practices that help in "overcoming the fragmented forms of thinking and acting". [23] These practices must be coined in the "paradigm of interdisciplinarity, radically and intentionally built in undergraduate courses, even if it is necessary to overcome the current academic forms of teaching, research and extension organization". [23]

Therefore, Higher Education has a deep and crucial, but often overlooked, role in building the vision of a sustainable future as reality. It is in HEI that most of the professionals who develop, manage, teach, work, and influence the organizations of society, should have initiated their process of ecological awareness, with the contents worked in the EE articulated to nature, history, and knowledge, as well as values and attitudes such as: respect and responsibility. [22]

Seeing the environment as a place of relations, above all social and cultural relations, EE can be configured as an educational practice of building citizenship, from the problematization of the degradation of environmental conditions and living conditions as intrinsically articulated processes. The role of this educational intervention is extremely important, especially at this time, when we see the "greening" of discourses on development. [27]

5. Final Considerations

The challenge posed by CNE resolution no. 2/2012 seems to be to delve into the plot of society/environment relations, contributing to the construction of new democratic understandings and practices that can reinforce the fight against exclusion and at the same time question the current lifestyle. A struggle for the universalization of the values of an unjust and environmentally degraded society, but a struggle for the radicalization of democracy in relations with environmental goods.

Thus, from the Brazilian legal framework (Constitution 88, National Environmental Education Policy/1999, National Curricular Guidelines for Environmental Education/2012, National Curricular Guidelines/2015), there was a space for training environmental educators and was inferred in role of leadership in cultural and social change, which must be assumed by Higher Education Institutions in the process of technological development. In addition to preparing students and providing information, they can lead to a critical appropriation of knowledge, attitudes, and values: political, social and historical, in terms of a sustainable and just society.

Note

¹"must be understood as an ideal type that alludes simultaneously to an identity profile and to a corporate utopia. [...] offers itself to the whole of society as an ethical model for being in the world [...]"; [28] The ecological subject approaches the concept of the ego that adds "family, social and cultural values and beliefs that constitute the traits and marks considered positive and that will constitute models for identification of the process of formation of subjectivities". [28] It can be seen in three versions, "In its political version, it could be presented as a heroic subject, the vanguard of a historical movement, heir to left-wing political traditions, but protagonist of a new political-existential paradigm. In its New Age version, it is seen as alternative, integral, balanced, harmonic, planetary, holistic. In his version of social manager, he is supposed to share a political and technical understanding of the socio-environmental crisis, being responsible for adopting legal procedures and instruments to confront them, to mediate conflicts and to plan actions", [29] which intermediates these versions is the ethical posture.

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