Política de gestão de resíduos e a educação ambiental dos servidores e dos discentes da UEMA, campus de São Luís

Abstract

Faced with continuous urban growth, the lack of efficient environmental planning that includes educational actions, has led to frequent discussions about the necessary changes in the patterns of production, consumption and proper treatment of waste, around the world. In this context, Higher level Education Institutions have the social liability of including Environmental Education into the educational process to build individual attitudes and skills to protect the environment proactively. Following this theme, a case study was conducted following qualitative and quantitative approaches, at the State University of Maranhão. The main objective of this research was to analyze the relationship between integrated solid waste management at the State University of Maranhão (UEMA), in São Luís Campus, and the perception of students and State employees about the environmental education, influencing the environmentally responsible behavior from these individuals, in this Campus. The qualitative methodological procedures consisted in the further deepening about the environmental management policies of UEMA, and the perception about the main guiding elements of the institutional environmental management policy, from those who work with these issues in the institution. For this, documentary and bibliographic data were collected and grouped and, in parallel, we proceeded with the analysis of contents extracted from semi-structured interviews with five key persons directly involved with the environmental management work in the institution. In the quantitative approach of the research, the surveys of the Ecological Behavior Scale and the Environmental Education Insert Perception Scale were adapted. These scales were selected with the purpose of analyzing students and State employees' perceptions about UEMA's environmental education policies and their sustainable practices, inside and outside the institution. Using statistical calculations, descriptive, sociodemographic and factorial analyzes were performed, allowing a discussion about the individuality between the groups, the establishment of correlations between the constructs and comparisons between the samples. From the outcome of both methodological procedures, we could found that there is a need to strengthen the institution's Environmental Education, improvement of the administrative structure and the results control system of the actions developed. In addition, we could realize that there is a low involvement of students and State employees in the activities promoted by the institution. The sociodemographic and factorial analyzes of the constructs indicates the divergences of ecological behavior between the samples, revealing, in general, that there is a greater environmental commitment of the State employees, compared to the students.The theoretical contributions of this study lie in the distinction of results, indicating the need to improve the environmental education in universities, causing significant behavioral changes in the relationship between society and the environment.