Legal and environmental education: An experience for the development of citizenship and sustainability

The degradation of the environment and decline of natural resources, as a result of a consumerism based socioeconomic paradigm, is constantly challenging the efficacy of environmental laws. In this context, education presents itself as a powerful transformation tool. Education can create a feeling of belonging, responsibility and awareness between an individual and their environment, providing more effectiveness to the law and the knowledge crucial to one's role as citizen. This article discusses research in the pedagogical practice oriented toward environmental education and awareness in Pirabeiraba city - Joinville - SC. The project was designed to teach youth about concepts and basic principles of Brazil's environmental laws. The goals were to encourage practices related to sustainability and community, by means of a critical review of the laws and their applications to daily activities. The methods used in this research, which is qualitative in nature ( action research), consist of a previous study to choose the appropriate language to be used to teach and the production of educational images and photographs of the local environment. Later, the environmental laws were presented. Posteriorly, activities to help with the learning process were applied. A test was applied to evaluate their knowledge pertaining to the content studied and a practical activity was assigned, where they developed legal argumentation after the study of real local cases. During the application of the research, the chosen methods reached results which surpassed expectations previously defined in the research goals. As they were performing the proposed activities, which included essays, artistic productions and oral debates, the students presented relevant works such as the staging of a jury ( simulated jury) with emphasis on legal concepts and environmental education and then showed interdisciplinary and critical comprehension of the discussed topics, which translated into a significant development of their environmental awareness.