The origin of environmental knowledge among students at Campus IV of the Federal University of Paraíba

Abstract

The development of environmental knowledge in school environments must take into account individuals' previous experiences with different environments and nature, before, during and after entering university. With this in mind, the general objective is to investigate the knowledge of students at Campus IV of the Federal University of Paraíba on environmental issues. The theoretical framework addressed the construction of knowledge, citing Kant (1971 apud Silveira, 2002), Demo (1985), Foucault (1987) and Leff (1998). The methodological procedures used exploratory, documentary and field research, with a qualitative-quantitative approach. The research subjects were undergraduate students at Campus IV, UFPB, and 500 responses were obtained. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the documentary and questionnaire data, and Atlas.ti software was used to generate the word cloud. The results indicate that the research subjects' environmental knowledge is limited and is reduced to the natural environment, without considering other ecosystems such as built environments, animals, man himself, climate change, among others. It is concluded that the students have some understanding of what the environment is, so that secondary school is the main channel responsible for introducing this content.