THE AESTHETIC DIMENSION OF ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION: PERSPECTIVES OF TEACHERS AND ART-EDUCATORS

The ecological crisis has on Environmental Education (EE) one of the possible paths to revert the situation using three dimensions - knowledge, values and political participation, which are linked and complementary. Interested in the work of values, we turn to the aesthetic appreciation of nature. The aesthetic dimension, especially its association with the art, can contribute to build a less fragmented view of the world, offering to the learner the construction of new values and the development of sensitivity. Recognizing the challenge posed by the approach of this dimension in the design of EA, with this research, qualitative, we aimed to identify understandings and practices of teachers and art educators interested in working with EE, analyzing the limits and possibilities for such work. One aspect revealed in our analysis concerns the need to break with the rationalist model adopted by our society, which, among other things, denies the sensitivity to the point of making the aesthetic dimension a secondary factor in educational proposals, which seems to be a limiting factor of the performance of both teachers, as of art educators. The exchange of knowledge between these can be configured as an important measure to work with the aesthetic dimension can be effected in the educational processes.