Certain prominent environmental theorists have accounted for and/or addressed our unmitigated environmentally damaging behavior in cognitive terms, related to a common (misplaced) belief that economic development and technological advancement, among other contemporary processes, will solve our environmental problems. However, I argue that they have not given due consideration to the complex (predominantly non-cognitive/non-conscious) discursive constitution of the individual, and thus seem to adhere to a Kantian notion of autonomy that overlooks such non-cognitive factors. Focusing on this non-cognitive aspect of discursive constitution, I ascribe our ecological apathy mainly to the fact that we have been discursively constituted as docile bodies and prostrate subjects. Further, I argue that, because this process of discursive constitution is primarily non-cognitive, any attempts to remedy our ecological apathy at a cognitive level alone will not be completely effective. Consequently, I propose that a more effective way of fostering pro-environmental dispositions may be for individuals to engage in an ethic/culture of the self that is not exclusively conceptual in orientation, and which is centered on the practice of a counter-discourse that does not constitute the individual as docile and prostrate nor negate the individual’s dependence on the environment. Alternatively, in order to engender pro-environmental civilizational change, it may be necessary to operate within the discursive parameters of dominant/popular institutions, in order to incrementally alter the discourses employed within, and disseminated through, these institutions, in a manner that would lead to the problematization, rather than the endorsement, of the ecologically deleterious technological, political and economic trajectories of our time.

In the United States during the last 30 years there has been a shift from extractive natural resource-based economies of the Old West to a New West defined by environmental protection. Over the past century, a growing national support for environmental protection has influenced a lengthening list of national and state parks, national monuments, national wildlife refuges, and wilderness areas in the western United States. Increasingly, urbanites seeking outdoor recreation and enhanced "quality of life" are attracted to the rural towns, or "gateway towns," bordering these protected natural areas. Boulder and Escalante, Utah, traditional ranching communities that became gateway towns to Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument on September 18, 1996, are western rural towns currently experiencing such change. President Clinton created Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (GSENM) by invoking the Antiquities Act and thus bypassing congressional approval and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requirements. As a result, the local people of Boulder and Escalante have expressed anger and hostility toward the federal government and environmentalists, which has led to community dysfunction and polarization, leaving Boulder and Escalante in disadvantageous positions as gateway towns faced with the task of planning for increased tourism and population growth. In my thesis I utilize cultural survival theory and perspectives on environmentalism, tourism and growth management to explore the various impacts of GSENM on Boulder and Escalante's local culture and to identify possible remedies or alternatives to these impacts. Methods used in collecting data include background research, participant observation, recent related survey data, and in-depth interviews with Boulder and Escalante residents. Research findings show that GSENM threatens the local culture by infringing on local territoriality, introducing outside values, beliefs and ideas, forcing rapid and unwanted change on a traditional people, and leaving locals feeling voiceless and powerless in the face of change. In sum, I found that a lack of both trust and cultural sensitivity have played roles in fostering community dysfunction and polarization. However, I believe that common ground and community solidarity can be achieved in Boulder and Escalante through the re-establishment of trust, a greater sensitivity toward the local culture, and proper leadership. / Graduation date: 2001

The likelihood of achieving an effective environmental health communications program increases with a knowledge of the target audience's attitudes toward their environmental health concerns, source credibility, preferred channels of communication, and desire to participate in environmental issues. With this in mind, the purpose of this study was threefold: 1) to examine selected personal and social variables that influence attitudes towards environmental health communications; 2) to explore differences in those attitudes between groups that share a common environmental hazard within a defined geographic region; and, 3) to develop a communication needs assessment tool that other public health agencies might be able to use. A stratified random telephone sampling of 407 households was conducted in Idaho's Coeur d'Alene River Basin. Nonparametric statistical methods, Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of ranks, were utilized for the data analysis. The results, showed significant differences in the environmental concerns between the residents of Couer d'Alene and residents of the Silver Valley. Respondents in Coeur d'Alene were more concerned with air pollution, while respondents in the Silver Valley were more concerned with the effects of mining. Secondly, the state government was less negatively received as a source of environmental information than were the local or federal governments. In addition, respondents earning between $50,000 and $75,000 a year have the highest amount of trust in information coming from the federal government. Both TV news and local newspaper were the preferred channels of communication for the majority of respondents in the region. Qualitative data revealed that media sources from Spokane, Washington were a dominant influence in the region. Respondents with a college degree were less likely than respondents from other educational levels to prefer TV news as a source of environmental information. They were, however, more likely to participate in a public meeting than were respondents from other educational levels. Finally, research findings suggest that women, and respondents earning less than $10,000 per year, feel less control over their environmental health than do men and respondents from higher income levels. They are also less likely than either men or respondents earning more than $10,000 per year to feel that a citizen's efforts to protect the environment are usually effective. / Graduation date: 1996

A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Humanities University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. April 2017 / Sustainable development is one of the major discourses of the twenty first century. In many instances sustainable development has been synonymous with the discourse of ecological modernisation. Ecological modernisation, as a discourse, has been proposed as an entreating means to reach the ideal of development that is sustainable, but has by and large only been tested within developed nations. There is, however, a prominent academic debate centred on the potential social and environmental justice concerns that may emanate from the promotion of ecological modernisation in environmental policy. This research project aimed to understand the degree to which ecological modernisation has been embraced in South Africa, and the environmental justice implications of this adoption. This was in an attempt to build an environmental justice policy framework for ecological modernisation in a bid to address environmental justice concerns. South African energy policy and practice was investigated in order to do this. Civil society hold an esteemed position in ecological modernisation, and as such in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with a number of civil society activists who are involved in a range of campaigns for environmental justice. Their insights and solutions to potential environmental justice concerns that would result from using ecological modernisation were investigated. This was done in an attempt to build a list of environmental justice principles that can possibly be used to inform policies based on ecological modernisation in order to ensure just development. These criteria address the role of government, the role of society at large, as well as industry, and for the most part seek to understand if the disparate power dynamics that exist amongst these three actors can potentially be addressed. South African energy policies were analysed for evidence of these justice principles. It was found that South African energy policies do not address environmental justice in any measure that would truly allow for justice to be put into the practice of governing the environment. Therefore, by incorporating these environmental justice principles into ecological modernisation, ecological modernisation can potentially be stronger in approach to sustainable development than it presently is. / MT 2018

The aim of this dissertation is to understand how worries over nature’s degradation, ensuing securitization practices, and emergent norms intersect in environmental protected areas. It concerns the Nilgiri Biosphere in Kerala, South India, and how regimes of nature protection effect the lives of its human inhabitants, the Kurumba, a so-called primitive adivasi tribe. Combining ethnography with archival research, it asserts that the labors and logics of nature protection, present and past, participate in a distinctly liberal problematic of competing securities, manifest in the tension between sovereign discretions and the freedoms of legal rights and market interests. This study makes two overarching claims. First, that during the colonial era, nature’s inessential character allowed for flexibilities in legal interpretation that furthered imperial ambitions. In the silence of the law, norms mediated by colonialist pejoratives operated to satisfy those ambitions, while supplementing the knowledge necessary for government. Second, analysis of recent environmental movements and ecological projects surrounding the Nilgiri Biosphere shows how norms derived from civil society are produced to intervene between security prerogatives and social freedoms. The upshot of these normative practices, I argue, is to depoliticize natures and agencies, while extending and intensifying security’s command of unruly natures. While ensuring lives lived in accordance to it, this normativity endangers those who fall short of or otherwise elude it. To understand this endangerment, I provide an interpretation of adivasi resistances and rejections, in particular the Kurumba turn to illicit cultivation of ganja in the Biosphere’s core area. I contextualize this turn within the history of forest-adivasi relations, recent adivasi actions elsewhere within the Nilgiri Biosphere, and the global discourses of indigenous peoples and the environment. I argue that by operating not through a putative politics of rights and interest, but through counter-conducts and illegalities, the Kurumba present a challenge to the political as such.

A key challenge confronting modern policymakers is to ensure that economic development is both socially just and environmentally sustainable. Toward that goal, effective government regulations require the accurate quantification of their associated costs and benefits. An extensive theoretical and empirical literature in economics has shown the benefits of government policies in addressing market failures and providing public goods. But few studies have credibly identified the social costs and distributional impacts of existing policies. My dissertation integrates new data and empirical methods from economics and earth sciences to investigate the social impacts of energy infrastructure and environmental policy. Chapter 1 uses the Three Gorges Dam in China as a natural experiment to provide the first evidence of the social and economic impacts of dam-induced inundation on population displacement and labor market reallocation. Chapter 2 examines the political economy implications of wind turbine construction on United States congressional elections. Chapter 3 employs original data from a large-scale survey to study the social benefits of environmental quality improvements. Overall, results from these papers inform future research on the social impacts of energy and environmental policy and highlight the importance of unbiased policy evaluations.

A presente pesquisa objetivou identificar e compreender as representações sociais de educação ambiental de professores dos anos iniciais do ensino fundamental de escolas municipais de Pato Branco. Para isso, participaram da pesquisa 6 docentes de uma escola urbana e 6 de uma escola rural. Inicialmente apresentou-se a teoria das representações sociais, focalizando um breve histórico de seu surgimento, o seu conceito e desdobramentos, além dos processos de objetivação e ancoragem. Por conseguinte, ilustrou-se um entendimento de educação em seu sentido mais amplo, a compreensão da crise ambiental, sua contextualização baseada em encontros e congressos ocorridos em nível nacional e internacional e as correntes, conservadora e crítica, pelas quais a educação ambiental vem sendo desenvolvida no Brasil. Para complementar, foi explorada a temática da formação de professores e a introdução da educação ambiental nas práticas pedagógicas dos docentes. Como proposta metodológica delimitaram-se três instrumentos de coleta de dados: entrevista com as docentes, hierarquização de evocações e análise de documentos, como os planos de ensino das professoras e os projetos políticos pedagógicos de ambas as escolas. Para a análise dos dados utilizou-se a análise de conteúdo para identificar e compreender as representações de educação ambiental. A partir do material coletado, concluiu-se que as representações sociais de educação ambiental das professoras pesquisadas giram em torno da conscientização para respeitar e preservar o ambiente. Trata-se, então, de que essa educação consiste em um conjunto de procedimentos cujo fim é desenvolver a consciência para o respeito e a preservação do ambiente. Ambiente este considerado apenas em seus aspectos naturais. A técnica da hierarquização corroborou essa compreensão, que a representação social de educação ambiental tem a ver com o desenvolvimento da consciência para com o respeito e a preservação do ambiente. Na análise dos Projetos Políticos Pedagógicos das escolas bem como o caderno das professoras, observamos a inexistência quase que total de registros das atividades desenvolvidas em sala de aula. Nos relatos das entrevistas e na análise documental foram apontados que os diálogos sobre educação ambiental são realizados, porém ainda muito ligados às datas comemorativas. Também foi constatado que as práticas pedagógicas das pesquisadas repercutem, em certo sentido, os processos de formação das professoras em educação ambiental. Reforçou-se a questão da formação frágil dessas professoras, as quais são exigidas de muitas formas e realizam o que podem para não deixar os alunos sem acesso ao conhecimento, justificando, então, as atividades pontuais encontradas nos materiais dessas professoras. Faz-se necessário o desenvolvimento de políticas públicas voltadas para a educação ambiental que sejam destinadas aos professores em sala de aula, além do oferecimento de formação continuada com um enfoque ambiental e a distribuição de materiais nas escolas, uma vez que o tema é atual e já faz parte do cotidiano escolar em si. / This work aims to identify and comprehend the social representations of environmental education of teachers of the initial years of the elementary schools of the city of Pato Branco. This research involved six teachers of an urban school and six teachers of a rural school. Initially, is presented the social representation theory, with a brief overview of its origins, concepts and ramifications. It is also presented the processes of objectification and anchoring. Thus, an understanding of education is exemplified in its broader sense, an environmental crisis comprehension, its contextualization based in local and international conferences and the conservative and critical currents that form the main framework for the environmental education developed in Brazil. To complement, it is explored the thematic of teacher formation and the introduction of the environmental education in the pedagogical practices of the teachers. As methodological proposition, three instruments of collecting data are used: interview, hierarchization of the evocations and analysis of documents, such as, syllabus and political-pedagogic projects of both schools. To analyze the data, it is used content analysis to identify and comprehend the representations of the environmental education. Based on the collected data, it is concluded that the social representations of the environmental education revolves around the awareness to respect and preserve the environment. Therefore, this education consists in a set of procedures aiming to develop the awareness to respect and to preserve the environment which is only considered on its natural aspects. The hierarchization technique corroborates this comprehension that the social representation of environmental education is related to development of the awareness regarding the respect and preservation of the environment. In the analysis of the syllabus and the class diary of the teachers, it can be observed almost total inexistence of registered activities developed in class. During the interviews and the documental analysis it can be noted that dialogs about environmental education are carried out. However, they are still related to commemorative dates. It is also noted that pedagogical practices of the interviewed people reflect, in a certain sense, the processes of formation of the teachers of environmental education. It is stressed the fragile formation of those teachers that are demanded, in several ways, to realize what is possible in order to not leave the students without the access to the knowledge, therefore justifying the point-specific activities found in the teacher’s materials. It is necessary the development of public policies related to the environmental education focused on teachers, beyond providing continuous formation also focused on environmental education and the distribution of related materials in schools, since the subject is current and it is part of the daily routine of the schools.

A presente pesquisa tem como objetivo compreender as representações sociais de professores sobre meio ambiente e a relação destas representações com as práticas pedagógicas em educação ambiental informadas pelos educadores sujeitos da pesquisa. Desse modo, este estudo circula pelas áreas da educação e da psicologia social. Os sujeitos desta pesquisa compreendem uma população de 51 professoras que atuam nos quartos e quintos anos do Ensino Fundamental da rede municipal de ensino de Pato Branco, município localizado na região Sudoeste do Paraná. Apresenta-se uma revisão bibliográfica sobre representações sociais de meio ambiente, a partir da teoria das Representações Sociais de Serge Moscovici; outra sobre a problemática ambiental e a educação ambiental, e a partir dessa revisão, concorda-se com a compreensão crítica de educação ambiental, a qual embasa a análise dos dados coletados sobre esse constructo; e uma revisão bibliográfica sobre prática pedagógica em educação ambiental, a partir da qual, concorda-se igualmente com a compreensão crítica. Como propostas metodológicas delimitam-se três técnicas de coleta de dados, a saber: técnica de evocação livre, baseada na Teoria do Núcleo Central das Representações Sociais, aplicada ao total da população, ou seja, 51 sujeitos; análise documental de registros docentes; e entrevista semi-estruturada, analisadas a partir da teoria de análise de conteúdo. Estas últimas etapas foram aplicadas com oito sujeitos. A partir da análise de todos os dados, concluiu-se que as representações sociais de meio ambiente da maioria dos professores da rede de ensino fundamental de Pato Branco é “conscientizar para preservar a natureza”, uma compreensão de foco naturalista e que possui aspectos antropocêntricos. As análises das entrevistas e dos documentos apresentaram resultados complementares. De acordo com esses resultados, todas as professoras realizam atividades pedagógicas voltadas à educação ambiental, e 75% da amostra apresentam práticas pedagógicas em educação ambiental fortemente voltadas a práticas conservadoras. Correlacionando os dados encontrados a respeito de representação social de meio ambiente e de práticas pedagógicas, conclui-se que a compreensão de meio ambiente dos professores dos anos finais do Ensino Fundamental da rede de ensino de Pato Branco repercute diretamente nas práticas pedagógicas por eles desenvolvidas em educação ambiental. Observa-se também que as práticas pedagógicas utilizam como ferramentas elementos midiáticos e projetos da iniciativa privada, os quais se intitulam como voltados à educação ambiental e apresentaram igualmente uma concepção de preservação da natureza. Desse modo, compreendendo criticamente, observa-se que os resultados encontrados reverberam concepções históricas, culturais e sociais. De todo modo, sendo a educação ambiental uma ferramenta de mudanças e os professores um de seus principais utilizadores, faz-se necessário auxiliar os docentes a refletir sobre meio ambiente tornando-se sujeitos atuantes na formação de compreensões críticas sobre natureza, cidadania, sociedade, Geografia, História, Matemática, Português e outros campos de saber. / The main objective of this research is to comprehend the social representations of teachers about environment and the relationship between those representations andthe pedagogic practices in environmental education informed by the educator subjects of the research. Thereby, the subjects of this study comprehend a population of 51 teachers acting in the fourth and fifth grades of the Elementary School of the municipal education network of Pato Branco, city located in the Southwest region of Paraná. A bibliographic review is presented about environment social representations from the Theory of the Social Representations of Serge Moscovici; another one about the environment matter and environmental education, and, from this review, it’s agreed to the critical comprehension of environmental education, which underlies the analysis of the collected data about that construct; and a bibliographic review about pedagogic practice in environmental education, from which it’s also agreed to the critical comprehension. As methodological proposal, three instruments of data collecting are delimited, namely: free evocation technique, based on the Theory of Social Representations Central Core, applied to all the population, in other words, 51 subjects; documental analysis of teacher registries; and semi-structured interview, analyzed from the theory of content analysis. Those last steps were applied to eight subjects. From the analysis of all the data, it was concluded that the social representations about environment of most of the teachers of PatoBranco’s Elementary School network is “apprize to preserve the nature”, a naturalist-focused comprehension with anthropocentric aspects. The analysis of the interviews and the documents showed complimentary results. According to those results, all the teachers perform pedagogic practices directed to environmental education e 75% of that sample present pedagogical practices in environmental education strongly directed to conservative practices. Correlating the found data about social representation of environment and pedagogical practices, it’s concluded that the environment comprehension of teachers of the final years of the Elementary School of PatoBranco’s education network echoes directly to the pedagogical practices developed by them in environmental education. It’s observated that the pedagogic practices use as tools mediatic elements and private initiative projects, which are environmental education oriented and present a nature preservation focus. Thereby, critically comprehending, it’s observed the found results echo historical, cultural and social conceptions. Anyway, being the environmental education a tool for changes and the teachers one of the its main users, it’s necessary to help them to think about environment becoming acting subjects in the formation of critical comprehensions about environment, citizenship, society, geography, history, mathematics, Portuguese and other fields of knowledge.

A presente pesquisa objetivou identificar e compreender as representações sociais de educação ambiental de professores dos anos iniciais do ensino fundamental de escolas municipais de Pato Branco. Para isso, participaram da pesquisa 6 docentes de uma escola urbana e 6 de uma escola rural. Inicialmente apresentou-se a teoria das representações sociais, focalizando um breve histórico de seu surgimento, o seu conceito e desdobramentos, além dos processos de objetivação e ancoragem. Por conseguinte, ilustrou-se um entendimento de educação em seu sentido mais amplo, a compreensão da crise ambiental, sua contextualização baseada em encontros e congressos ocorridos em nível nacional e internacional e as correntes, conservadora e crítica, pelas quais a educação ambiental vem sendo desenvolvida no Brasil. Para complementar, foi explorada a temática da formação de professores e a introdução da educação ambiental nas práticas pedagógicas dos docentes. Como proposta metodológica delimitaram-se três instrumentos de coleta de dados: entrevista com as docentes, hierarquização de evocações e análise de documentos, como os planos de ensino das professoras e os projetos políticos pedagógicos de ambas as escolas. Para a análise dos dados utilizou-se a análise de conteúdo para identificar e compreender as representações de educação ambiental. A partir do material coletado, concluiu-se que as representações sociais de educação ambiental das professoras pesquisadas giram em torno da conscientização para respeitar e preservar o ambiente. Trata-se, então, de que essa educação consiste em um conjunto de procedimentos cujo fim é desenvolver a consciência para o respeito e a preservação do ambiente. Ambiente este considerado apenas em seus aspectos naturais. A técnica da hierarquização corroborou essa compreensão, que a representação social de educação ambiental tem a ver com o desenvolvimento da consciência para com o respeito e a preservação do ambiente. Na análise dos Projetos Políticos Pedagógicos das escolas bem como o caderno das professoras, observamos a inexistência quase que total de registros das atividades desenvolvidas em sala de aula. Nos relatos das entrevistas e na análise documental foram apontados que os diálogos sobre educação ambiental são realizados, porém ainda muito ligados às datas comemorativas. Também foi constatado que as práticas pedagógicas das pesquisadas repercutem, em certo sentido, os processos de formação das professoras em educação ambiental. Reforçou-se a questão da formação frágil dessas professoras, as quais são exigidas de muitas formas e realizam o que podem para não deixar os alunos sem acesso ao conhecimento, justificando, então, as atividades pontuais encontradas nos materiais dessas professoras. Faz-se necessário o desenvolvimento de políticas públicas voltadas para a educação ambiental que sejam destinadas aos professores em sala de aula, além do oferecimento de formação continuada com um enfoque ambiental e a distribuição de materiais nas escolas, uma vez que o tema é atual e já faz parte do cotidiano escolar em si. / This work aims to identify and comprehend the social representations of environmental education of teachers of the initial years of the elementary schools of the city of Pato Branco. This research involved six teachers of an urban school and six teachers of a rural school. Initially, is presented the social representation theory, with a brief overview of its origins, concepts and ramifications. It is also presented the processes of objectification and anchoring. Thus, an understanding of education is exemplified in its broader sense, an environmental crisis comprehension, its contextualization based in local and international conferences and the conservative and critical currents that form the main framework for the environmental education developed in Brazil. To complement, it is explored the thematic of teacher formation and the introduction of the environmental education in the pedagogical practices of the teachers. As methodological proposition, three instruments of collecting data are used: interview, hierarchization of the evocations and analysis of documents, such as, syllabus and political-pedagogic projects of both schools. To analyze the data, it is used content analysis to identify and comprehend the representations of the environmental education. Based on the collected data, it is concluded that the social representations of the environmental education revolves around the awareness to respect and preserve the environment. Therefore, this education consists in a set of procedures aiming to develop the awareness to respect and to preserve the environment which is only considered on its natural aspects. The hierarchization technique corroborates this comprehension that the social representation of environmental education is related to development of the awareness regarding the respect and preservation of the environment. In the analysis of the syllabus and the class diary of the teachers, it can be observed almost total inexistence of registered activities developed in class. During the interviews and the documental analysis it can be noted that dialogs about environmental education are carried out. However, they are still related to commemorative dates. It is also noted that pedagogical practices of the interviewed people reflect, in a certain sense, the processes of formation of the teachers of environmental education. It is stressed the fragile formation of those teachers that are demanded, in several ways, to realize what is possible in order to not leave the students without the access to the knowledge, therefore justifying the point-specific activities found in the teacher’s materials. It is necessary the development of public policies related to the environmental education focused on teachers, beyond providing continuous formation also focused on environmental education and the distribution of related materials in schools, since the subject is current and it is part of the daily routine of the schools.

A presente pesquisa tem como objetivo compreender as representações sociais de professores sobre meio ambiente e a relação destas representações com as práticas pedagógicas em educação ambiental informadas pelos educadores sujeitos da pesquisa. Desse modo, este estudo circula pelas áreas da educação e da psicologia social. Os sujeitos desta pesquisa compreendem uma população de 51 professoras que atuam nos quartos e quintos anos do Ensino Fundamental da rede municipal de ensino de Pato Branco, município localizado na região Sudoeste do Paraná. Apresenta-se uma revisão bibliográfica sobre representações sociais de meio ambiente, a partir da teoria das Representações Sociais de Serge Moscovici; outra sobre a problemática ambiental e a educação ambiental, e a partir dessa revisão, concorda-se com a compreensão crítica de educação ambiental, a qual embasa a análise dos dados coletados sobre esse constructo; e uma revisão bibliográfica sobre prática pedagógica em educação ambiental, a partir da qual, concorda-se igualmente com a compreensão crítica. Como propostas metodológicas delimitam-se três técnicas de coleta de dados, a saber: técnica de evocação livre, baseada na Teoria do Núcleo Central das Representações Sociais, aplicada ao total da população, ou seja, 51 sujeitos; análise documental de registros docentes; e entrevista semi-estruturada, analisadas a partir da teoria de análise de conteúdo. Estas últimas etapas foram aplicadas com oito sujeitos. A partir da análise de todos os dados, concluiu-se que as representações sociais de meio ambiente da maioria dos professores da rede de ensino fundamental de Pato Branco é “conscientizar para preservar a natureza”, uma compreensão de foco naturalista e que possui aspectos antropocêntricos. As análises das entrevistas e dos documentos apresentaram resultados complementares. De acordo com esses resultados, todas as professoras realizam atividades pedagógicas voltadas à educação ambiental, e 75% da amostra apresentam práticas pedagógicas em educação ambiental fortemente voltadas a práticas conservadoras. Correlacionando os dados encontrados a respeito de representação social de meio ambiente e de práticas pedagógicas, conclui-se que a compreensão de meio ambiente dos professores dos anos finais do Ensino Fundamental da rede de ensino de Pato Branco repercute diretamente nas práticas pedagógicas por eles desenvolvidas em educação ambiental. Observa-se também que as práticas pedagógicas utilizam como ferramentas elementos midiáticos e projetos da iniciativa privada, os quais se intitulam como voltados à educação ambiental e apresentaram igualmente uma concepção de preservação da natureza. Desse modo, compreendendo criticamente, observa-se que os resultados encontrados reverberam concepções históricas, culturais e sociais. De todo modo, sendo a educação ambiental uma ferramenta de mudanças e os professores um de seus principais utilizadores, faz-se necessário auxiliar os docentes a refletir sobre meio ambiente tornando-se sujeitos atuantes na formação de compreensões críticas sobre natureza, cidadania, sociedade, Geografia, História, Matemática, Português e outros campos de saber. / The main objective of this research is to comprehend the social representations of teachers about environment and the relationship between those representations andthe pedagogic practices in environmental education informed by the educator subjects of the research. Thereby, the subjects of this study comprehend a population of 51 teachers acting in the fourth and fifth grades of the Elementary School of the municipal education network of Pato Branco, city located in the Southwest region of Paraná. A bibliographic review is presented about environment social representations from the Theory of the Social Representations of Serge Moscovici; another one about the environment matter and environmental education, and, from this review, it’s agreed to the critical comprehension of environmental education, which underlies the analysis of the collected data about that construct; and a bibliographic review about pedagogic practice in environmental education, from which it’s also agreed to the critical comprehension. As methodological proposal, three instruments of data collecting are delimited, namely: free evocation technique, based on the Theory of Social Representations Central Core, applied to all the population, in other words, 51 subjects; documental analysis of teacher registries; and semi-structured interview, analyzed from the theory of content analysis. Those last steps were applied to eight subjects. From the analysis of all the data, it was concluded that the social representations about environment of most of the teachers of PatoBranco’s Elementary School network is “apprize to preserve the nature”, a naturalist-focused comprehension with anthropocentric aspects. The analysis of the interviews and the documents showed complimentary results. According to those results, all the teachers perform pedagogic practices directed to environmental education e 75% of that sample present pedagogical practices in environmental education strongly directed to conservative practices. Correlating the found data about social representation of environment and pedagogical practices, it’s concluded that the environment comprehension of teachers of the final years of the Elementary School of PatoBranco’s education network echoes directly to the pedagogical practices developed by them in environmental education. It’s observated that the pedagogic practices use as tools mediatic elements and private initiative projects, which are environmental education oriented and present a nature preservation focus. Thereby, critically comprehending, it’s observed the found results echo historical, cultural and social conceptions. Anyway, being the environmental education a tool for changes and the teachers one of the its main users, it’s necessary to help them to think about environment becoming acting subjects in the formation of critical comprehensions about environment, citizenship, society, geography, history, mathematics, Portuguese and other fields of knowledge.