Environmental Education: school setting for strategic actions to raise awareness and prevent dengue fever

Abstract

This study analyzes dengue fever as an environmental and public health problem in Brazil, investigating schools as strategic spaces for awareness and prevention through environmental education. The main objective is to identify how schools can act as privileged settings for developing educational strategies for dengue prevention, mobilizing students, teachers, and the school community in environmental and health awareness actions. To develop this study, official documents such as the PNEA, the National Curriculum Guidelines for Environmental Education, BNCC, SDG3, official data from the Ministry of Health, PAHO, national epidemiological reports, and academic publications on the subject were analyzed. The methodology used was a qualitative approach through a descriptive bibliographic survey in the Scielo, Bireme, and PubMed databases, in addition to normative documents and educational booklets. The results show that dengue is aggravated by environmental factors and that environmental education is essential as a continuous process of critical training and transformation of social practices. It also highlights that schools act as a multiplying nucleus, showing that children act as ecological agents, since the implementation of school actions to prevent dengue contributes to citizenship training, the promotion of public health, and the achievement of SDG 3 goals, integrating sustainability and collective well-being.