José dos Santos Farias

Jose Mauro dos Santos Farias, an environmental activist, has developed an educational model to teach children environmental values and principles through numerous activities that he wants to see put into practice in schools throughout Brazil.

Jose's educational method teaches children about the environment using games, competitions, and nature tours. "It's designed to be fun while playing on a child's natural curiosity, which is key in keeping students involved," he says. The activities are meant to introduce concepts of conservation and recycling and to get children to see the value of nature.

His program is called "A Escola vai ao Campo," or "School Goes into the Field," a title that signifies Jose's goal of taking environmental education beyond the classroom and putting children in contact with nature. For him, education must build on a child's capacity for exploration and discovery, which can be satisfied by doing hands on studies and research. In order to foster environmental awareness, it must begin in the schools. "All the studies done about the environment, of which many countries are concerned, shows that environmental education is the most efficient way to build consciousness about this issue," Jose says.

In Brazil, educational legislation has been passed that mandates public schools to have classes on the environment. However, little has been done to incorporate environmental education into the school curriculum. Should there be a separate ecology course, or should environmental studies be handled as a science class? Or, then again, should homeroom teachers just do their own individual programs. Jose explains that recent changes in educational ministers have repeatedly led old initiatives to be scrapped, until new proposals are drafted and studied.

At present, children are only studying the environment if they happen to have a motivated teacher who is interested in the subject. Otherwise, as a rule, there are no such classes. In a country where there are so many ecological disasters--from the destruction of the Amazon rain forest and Mala Atlantica to the pollution of bays and rivers--Jose believes Brazil has no time to waste in trying to foster an environmental consciousness in the next generation.

Jose has made contact with schools in six states, and has already carried out the model in several of the schools. As an example, the program includes the game "Gincanas Ecologicas," which has teams competing against one other to perform a list of environmental tasks, for instance, recycling piles of garbage. Other activities include farm tours, where children study animals and crops, and walks through national parks and land reserves, where they study the various ecosystems.

Already he has seen evidence of students taking their own environmental initiatives following his programs. At one school in the city of Bomsucesso, on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, Jose says students took it upon themselves to start a school recycling project, while at another school, students started a tree preservation campaign in their community.

Jose also wants to organize an environmental education database that compiles all the experiences and methods used by teachers in Brazil. A public school teacher who needs ideas or materials to start an ecology class could turn to this resource to get ideas on how to begin. Jose is getting the message out about his environmental package and database through contacts and by advertising in national teacher's publications.

To put his ideas into practice, he is networking with other educational citizen organizations and universities to expand his environmental program. He is working with university professors in preparing an environmental kit to give out to teachers interested in starting a school recycling program. Jose also wants to start a national "Green Club," which he hopes will link schoolchildren around Brazil. He is also working with other Ashoka fellows to create an "Environmental Farm" near Rio, one that uses solar energy and other environmentally sound techniques that can be used as a place for student trips and community functions.

Having been greatly influenced by environmental educators in his life, Jose is now trying to transmit to others the values of nature he has learned and appreciated.

A student of ecology at Estacio de Sa University, Jose has always been involved in environmental awareness campaigns. He has worked in elementary school programs, organized school and community field trips, and has been a guide on ecological tours.

Jose is from Niteroi, the city across the bay from Rio de Janeiro. He comes from a lower class background and makes a living as a soldier in the air force where he works a six hour shift, after which he dedicates himself to his projects. Despite his youth, he is respected by educators for his creativity and the uniqueness of his program. "You could say that my adolescence has been based in ecological causes, encouraging me to believe in ecological education as a way of helping others and the rest of life," he concludes.