Social and environmental projects focused on sustainable development, led by teachers and students in educational institutions in Brazil, have presented direct benefits to their communities Locations, extrapolating the walls of schools.
The 3rd edition of the Sustainable Schools Award, which announced the winners on Wednesday (17) in an event in São Paulo, revealed some of these initiatives.
“The school unit has to be ‘unpaired’. It has to skip this physical space from the walls of the institution and yes, this makes a difference in the environmental awareness of all,” said Professor Maria Raquel Santos, from the Magdalena Municipal Creche Arce Daou, in Manaus (AM), which developed last year the Incluarte – Sustart (photo above).
This is one of the award -winning projects of the national stage of the competition, winner in the category that evaluates early childhood education to elementary school. THE initiative was created from the need to include children with unity deficiencygiven the doubts and difficulties of mothers regarding the process of discovering the condition of children and the necessary adaptations.
In this context, Maria Raquel reported that the project emerged “bringing art as a bridge and inclusion as focus. And sustainability is the guiding thread of this whole process.” The work with families had the construction of terrariums as a symbol of the micromandos of each, with inspiration in the Sensory Garden project of the Federal Institute of Amazonas (IFAM).
“Seeing this work [do Ifam]I said: I will add [essa ferramenta]Because I think these terrariums can be an allegory of a new world that these mothers are discovering, ”he said.
From the construction of the micromundos, as a form of internal elaboration for these mothers, the teacher explained that there was the passage to the “macromundo”, in which they were able to work on inclusion. The result was the construction of a sensory garden within the nursery, prepared in partnership with families, which Maria Raquel defined as “a permanent link within the territory”.
While this part of the work was developed, there was a fire near the nursery, which ended the riparian forest of the area. The teacher said that the institution is on the verge of a polluted and totally degraded stream.
“So we had another demand, which was to recover this territory. We summoned the entire surrounding community, the neighborhood, the families, the children, the faculty and started setting up recovery actions.”
The teaching team was looking for partnerships, such as the Municipal Secretariat of Environment, which provided tree seedlings for both the devastated area rescue and the planting of a orchard in the day care. With the support of the Public Cleaning Secretariat, the square near the day care center gained a large sustainable exhibition, where pet bottle caps taken from the edge of the Igarapé became works of art at the hands of children and their mothers, along with the teaching team.
“There were more than 5,000 people involved in all this entrance to the project’s actions. Today this project has already reverberated in other spaces and is already being executed in six other nurseries units in Manaus [através do jardim sensorial]so we already lost measurement [do impacto] of this project, ”he said.
Finalists
In all, there were ten finalist projects in the Sustainable Schools Award. In addition to receiving cash value, champion schools now go to the international competition final, which will take place in Rio de Janeiro, on October 21, alongside the winning institutions of local stages in Mexico and Colombia.
The award is an initiative of the Santillana Foundation, Santillana and the Ibero-American State Organization for Education, Science and Culture (OIE).
For Luciano Monteiro, executive director of the Santillana Foundation in Brazil, the Award enables the creation of a bank of inspiring examples for students and teachers from the three participating countries.
“This portfolio of innovative initiatives is one of the most valuable parts of the prize. Sharing all these experiences and good practices allows us to value them and inspire other schools in Latin America.”
Also awarded on Wednesday night, the Aquaterraaalert project of the Brazil State School, the municipality of Limeira (SP)presented a Solution for mitigating the impacts of floods and landslides. The 6th grade students built, with the guidance of the teachers, a prototype of a monitoring system and alert for these situations.
“Our project came up when I saw a news that Limeira was part of the risk area for landslide and flood. And I took the proposal to the students, we started thinking about solutions to try to minimize the problem a little,” said Professor Nayra Rafaela Vida.
The initiative was awarded in the category of the last school stages and Youth and Adult Education (EJA).
Aquaterra Alert Project – from Brazil State School, Limeira (SP) – Disclosure/Awards Sustainable Schools
Students analyzed landliness data and flooding points, as well as expanding knowledge about which places in the world were most affected by these events.
“They also sought newspaper news for contextualization, we watched videos, to be able to make the debates and find a solution to the problem. And then we created the early monitoring and alarm monitoring system, with LED and ultrasonic sensors,” said Nayra, who teaches technology.
“As the water level climbed, when I got there in the [marcador] yellow, [o equipamento] already issued the alert sign and also sent a message [de celular] for the person who had the number registered to leave the risk area. When it arrived at [marcador] Red, and the LED light, people should have left the risk area, ”he explained.
In addition to the prototype, students produced posters and presented the solution to the school community, including parents, teachers and students from all classes.
According to Nayra, the city of Limeira has a single monitoring, which is under a bridge. “The Civil Defense found the proposal to expand [o monitoramento] for the other flooding points. On this issue of landslide, we tried to alert the population to those who live in these areas of risk, ”he said.
“Our discussion integrated several disciplines, not only the issue of sciences, but also the part of technology in the assembly of prototype, geography in soil study, communication and writing in materials produced for the presentation to the community,” he added.
Luciano Monteiro – Executive Director of the Santillana Foundation in Brazil. Disclosure/Santillana Foundation
For Luciano Monteiro, these projects are great examples of how to cross the school walls and bring to the involvement of families, the community and the public power.
“[O projeto de Limeira] It’s a great example, it takes a real problem that actually reaches that community, involves school audiences to think of a mitigation measure. It goes beyond a project that is just education for the environmental area, ”he said.
This year of COP30, added the director, the award helps bring the discussion of sustainability into the school environment.
“One of the great roles of education is precisely this of social transformation. And behind the idea of the prize is precisely you put a little more there in the spotlight this kind of initiative and this kind of solution that is born via education.”
Rodrigo Rossi, OEI director in Brazil, said that “it is an initiative that is already consolidated as one of the most representative of Ibero-América to boost an education committed to sustainability, development and environmental preservation”.
