Care About Water in Curitiba, Brazil: Educational and Environmental Practices at School

Abstract

This article aims to give relevance to environmental school practices as an extension of school curriculum for student’s values appropriation. Emphasis was placed on the actor network theory, in an interdisciplinary way, about water consumption, flavored water, to grow plants and care about River Barigui, in Curitiba, Brazil. Two basic pedagogical resources were explored: a game to care about river water and strategies to increase consumption of drinking water. First, a board game was designed to pass ideas on disposal and pollution of drinking water in this Brazilian River that crosses vertically the whole west side of Curitiba´s city and a section is behind the elected school. As a vital food, specially, water must be preserved clean and not be contaminated by disposal of frying oil in domestic sewage, which causes severe pollution. This specific poisoning element is subject of the municipal company of water campaign. Second, practices were made to flavor drinking water with herbs and fruits without sugar and carbon dioxide, elements that harm human health. The students and teachers understood the proposals between curriculum subjects and need of practices to fix contents. Positive testimonies about the reproduction of practices in the family and at school ambiance in order to care about water made the activities meaningful. Knowledge values appropriation in a collective group was fructiferous. Teachers and students evaluated positively the empirical network created by the water activities that brought together classroom culturally processes, curriculum contents and academic contents.