Interdisciplinaridade e o pensamento sistêmico: um estudo de caso envolvendo a educação ambiental e a modelagem computacional Stella na gestão ambiental sistêmica

Abstract

The increasing environmental damages resulting from the production and consumption relations of the current model of economic development has driven this a study, which by addressing environmental issues is aimed at supporting the importance of Environmental Education (EE) as a tool for Systemic Environmental Management (SEM). Thus it is expected to collaborate to a materialized understanding of the development sustainability in higher education, particularly within the engineering programs. Considering that environmental issues are not possibly looked at through the lens of natural sciences alone, this study searches for a synthesis that would enable our goals to be achieved through Systems Thinking. The study is developed in two stages that complete each other. First, a summary of themes converging to EE and SEM are brought together, and through dynamic multidisciplinary interactions it is proposed a meeting with the global model, which would make possible the emergence of a process of lifelong knowledge. Adjusted to our proposal and designed in conceptual maps, such an approach should facilitate the global understanding of this study. Secondly, seeking synergy to achieve our goals and supported by the Systems Dynamics, possibilities to implant computational modeling are regarded, as a tool of Environmental Impact Assessment. Through simulation techniques using the software STELLA, different scenarios involving events and characteristics that evolve with time, with a focus to a case study related to environmental damages caused by electricity generation by coal combustion in the municipality of Candiota, RS. Therefore, based on the convergence with a global understanding of this issue, the study seeks to propose a way of thinking to collaborate with the implantation of SEM processes. That is to say, grounded on the theoretical approaches involving the complex interaction that enables the emergence of our systemic objective, it is aimed at a synergy to facilitate the study of specific aspects resulting from this wider knowledge.