Materials Challenge and Lixolandia: A Pedagogical Experience to Sensitize About Recycling in the Classroom

Abstract

As part of the New Arrangements for Research and Innovation (NAPI) "Food and Territory" program, funded by the Araucária Foundation, which operates in the Southwest and Coast of the State of Paraná, Brazil, we report on the process and results of environmental awareness workshops held in two schools, one on the urban periphery of Francisco Beltrão and the other in the rural area of the same municipality. The workshops focused on the subject of recycling, and two activities were developed: the Lixolandia story and the Materials Challenge, both developed from a perspective of meaningful learning, which sought to explore/instigate the children's creativity, starting from their sensitive universe, previous knowledge and curiosity. Through games and role-playing, we uncovered questions about the composition and functions of materials, environmental contamination and, above all, using the same recycling materials, the children created possible worlds in a magical realism open to their imagination. All the while, we challenged them through dialogical opposites, such as starting at the end of the story, imagining a world dominated by objects that no longer served any purpose and playing a game with no losers. The result was an action-participatory research practiced inside the classroom, but far beyond it, we demonstrated through the paths of feeling-thinking that we can form critical and creative children within the university-territory relationship, with responsibility for social transformation and environmental commitment.