Environmental education in brazilian Protected Areas: a systematic review of political-pedagogical macrotrends

Abstract

Protected Areas (PAs) are non-formal educational environments with great potential for the development of actions in Environmental Education (EE). Thus, this paper aimed to analyze, through a systematic review in meta-analysis, the environmental education developed in brazilian protected areas in the last 10 years. The constitution of the research corpus was done through the CAPES Periodicals database, using the descriptors "environmental education" and "protected areas" in all fields. A total of 180 articles were found, and after reading the titles and abstracts, only those that presented some intervention, course or action of EE were selected, totaling 25 articles, which were read in full and later submitted to content analysis. The results indicate that the activities were developed in PAs of different management categories, by all levels of education and with various different methodologies. The actions still mostly present elements of the conservationist macrotrend, however, a high rate of work based on critical EE was noticed, demonstrating the inclusion of activities that are based on an EE that is popular, emancipatory and transformative. Relating the number of brazilian PAs and the number of published researches, a discrepancy was seen in the field, which highlights the necessity for more activities and publications that seek to raise the awareness of citizens about socioenvironmental problems and the importance of  PAs in the conservation of natural resources.