In the week that the municipality of San José celebrates its 273rd anniversary, a state-of-the-art Center for Educational Innovation and Technology was handed over to the community, designed to serve students and faculty from the municipality’s network. There are multidisciplinary rooms with modern equipment such as virtual reality glasses, robotics kits, a 3D printer and a laser cutter. It cannot be compared to the first multi-class school, which was opened shortly after Portuguese immigrants arrived in São José da Terra Firme from the Azores in the 1750s.

The Education Center for Innovation and Technology, according to director Luciana Schmitz, can simultaneously serve four classes with 25 students from the municipal educational network in the various environments that make up the school, and has already opened the agenda for reserving dates for schools and for groups of teachers.

A center for innovation and educational technology designed to serve students and teachers from the municipal network – Photo: Cristiano Estrela/Especial para o ND

A major project due to be launched by the end of this year is an educational complex designed to serve more than 4,000 daytime pre-school and primary school classes, which will be built in a green area in the Areias area and will have an amphitheater, a forest garden, places for technological innovations , creation and coexistence, sports fields and athletics tracks. Everything will run on solar energy. The idea is that the 77 m² plot will be able to combine technology, sustainability and children’s immersion in nature. The surrounding community will also be able to benefit from the structure.

With all the technological apparatus to be used as a pedagogical tool, there is also concern for teacher training to ensure that old pedagogical methods are passed on and enter the digital world. With this in mind, the Municipal Department of Education is implementing an ongoing “Educarweb” training program on the use of education systems in April, starting with face-to-face training for principals, teachers and school secretaries.

“With the use of technology, public education will be the key to that time of “pedagogy at the back of the head” when students stood behind each other and the teacher spoke and made a change, a transposition that has the teacher as a mentor and thus be able to generate knowledge and innovation along with students who become protagonists in their own learning,” emphasizes San Jose Education Minister Maria Helena Kruger.

Environment on land and at sea

The School of the Environment is located inside the Parque dos Sabiás, a 35-hectare green area in the Forquillas area with vegetation typical of the Atlantic Forest. The institution hosts groups of students from the municipal network who participate in lectures on environmental education, issues such as climate change and biome conservation.

Escola do Meio Ambiente is installed on the grounds of the Parque dos Sabiás in the Forquillas area. Photo: Divulgation/ND

After the presentation, students walk an interpretive trail where they can see the springs of the streams of the tributaries of the Forquillas River, which flows nearby. “During the trail, students are taught the importance of preserving springs, the importance of water and the rich biodiversity of this Atlantic forest in which we are,” explains the director of the school, Professor Cynthia Persike.

Students, after the trail, receive instructions on the disposal of solid domestic waste. The plastic or laminated packaging that children’s snacks are packaged in is used as an example of how these items can be harmful to the environment if not properly disposed of. The visit ends with a gardening workshop in the park itself, where students put their hands into the ground, as was the case with six-year-old Ana Beatrice. “I made a little plant,” he said shyly. Her classmate Laura, the same age, has already warned that she will tell her parents that “ants, bugs and spiders cannot be killed …”.

Students after the trail receive advice on solid waste disposal – Photo: Cristiano Estrela/Especial para o ND

The Ecological Educational Center Escola do Mar, located in the Serraria district, opposite Baia Norte, was founded during the administration of Mayor Fernando Elias in 2005 with the aim of assisting the fishermen and their families who worked in the region, with the help of showing alternatives to diversify activities because the trawl fishery that was practiced was not sustainable. In addition, the children of the fishermen did not want to continue the same activities as their parents.

Principal Valdete Pereira explains that the school has already started from an environmental point of view. “The mayor conceived a school where they will deal with issues of environmental protection and conservation.” A distinctive feature was the school boat with a capacity of 40 passengers and three crew members, which was awarded at the national level for the innovative nature of the initiative. The training boat is currently adapting to maritime legislation in order to put out to sea again.

While the school boat is waiting at the shipyard, Escola do Mar has launched another equally innovative and award-winning project: “Educational Robotics and the Environment”, which is coordinated by Prof. André Colla and won second place in the 2nd Social Responsibility Public Notice. Energia à Educação projects promoted by Engie.

Professor Kolla explains that the idea was to use the space of the school to combine sustainability, the environment and technology. How technology can help and encourage students to solve environmental problems. “We have environmental problems, we have solutions for them, and based on the use of technology, we make a proposal so that students can create, innovate, come up with ideas. Robotics allows this, the construction of ideas.”

Projects developed by students include prototypes of a robot that cleans sand from a beach and another designed to irrigate crops.

A simple, award-winning initiative

However, in the field of environmental protection, a project that originated in a Portuguese language class at Aldo Cámara da Silva’s school in the Nossa Senhora do Rosario area has taken on a national dimension. Professor Fabiana Nogueira Cayetano Mina invited the ninth-graders of the elementary school to write a text on the topic “The use of disposable items and the impact on the environment” and instantly aroused everyone’s interest in this topic.

The teacher says the activity has spread to other classes and beyond the school, and the project has been recognized and awarded by several organizations. “In the municipality of San José, some schools have launched actions inspired by the case of Aldo Camara, such as the schools of Maria da Graça and San Miguel, in addition to initiatives in three private schools in Greater Florianopolis,” Fabiana emphasizes. Out of state, the project has been implemented in a school in Santos, South Carolina, in the interior of Bahia, and in 150 schools in the state of Rio de Janeiro.

education in numbers

21,894 students study at CEI and CEM

4012 students study in vocational schools

1552 teachers

576 teaching assistants

490 classroom assistants

40 CEI (Children’s Education Center)

24 MOU (municipal educational center)

2 ecological schools

7 professional schools