Arising the senses about environmental education

Abstract

This paper comprises an analysis of the Program Trilha da vida (Track of life): (re)descovering nature through the senses from the critical, transforming and emancipatory perspective of environmental education. The LEA/ CTTMar/Univali in partnership with the Facinor and the NGO Voluntários pela Verdade Ambiental created this program in 1997 and it has been developed and analyzed since then. First located at the Natural Park of Pedras Vivas, in the municipality of Florianópolis/SC, the Trilha da vida (Track of Life) is nowadays being implemented in many places through a network of stakeholders for the Trilha da Vida dissemination. The Trilha da vida has educational, conservation and therapeutical purposes as a Community-based and Protected Areas Environmental Education and must not be misunderstood as a mere activity of sensitization. Therefore, it demands a continued capacity-building process of the stakeholders in each place. At the Paraná State this process has been co-ordinated by Facinor through research and extension projects. I present a short theoretical background of the program through the lens of a transdisciplinary educational experiments as form to breach with the anesthesia and generalized loss of senses of the consumption societies in the global world. Finally, I show up its transforming and emancipatory potential from some key categories originated from the focal groups reports that had experienced the Trilha da Vida.