ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION AND DISTANCE LEARNING: A DIALOGUE RELATED TO THE ELABORATION OF PROJECTS

This article has developed ideas on the interface between environmental education (EE) and Distance Learning (DL), as well as the recurring themes and methods in EE projects, from a semi- assisted training in environmental education for teachers of public schools in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, the course "Environmental Education: skills for the acting teacher", developed by the National Commercial Training Service of Rio Grande do Sul, in partnership with the state Department of Education (SEC / RS). This experience and a literature review formed the basis for the observation of certain similarities between these fields of knowledge, which proposes the development of common skills to face the postmodern challenges, such as autonomy, criticism and complexity. An analysis of projects developed during the course, its themes, methods and audience, and the results found by other authors in search of regional and national levels, suggest that EE is being represented (and even reduced) to subjects here called icons of EE. Topics such as garbage, water and energy tend to dominate the debate, but they deserve a greater depth related to the amplitude of these issues. Keywords: Environmental Education, Distance Learning, Teacher education; Projects.