Responsible for coordinating a team of seven teachers who implemented the Amazonian Itineraries in the three high school grades of the Salomão Matos State School, in Salvaterra, on Marajó Island (PA), sociology teacher Patrícia Helena Pereira was surprised by the reflections provoked in the students in the classroom.

The program provides free teaching material and trains educators, with the goal of bringing the Amazon in all its complexity to the classroom. At the Salomão Matos school, three modules of Natural Sciences were applied: “Bioeconomy, Sustainability and Natural Resources” for the 1st year; “Biodiversity and Food Production” for the 2nd year; and “Development of the Amazon and Legal Actions for Biodiversity Conversation” for the 3rd year.

Patrícia says that the variety of themes available in the teaching materials, combined with the possibility of the educator customizing the activities, was what most marked her experience with this training cycle. For her, the young students encountered a paradigm shift when they understood that studying the Amazon means going beyond the forest, since the program’s themes relate knowledge and issues of the territory to concepts such as sustainability and bioeconomy.

In this line of disruptive themes, the teacher highlights learning about the ‘New Industrialization Cycles’, which addressed a biofactory from the Amazon 4.0 project. The students were impressed by the existence of innovative projects in the territory. Furthermore, the images of the structure, with references to indigenous culture and their huts, led students to question the common imagination of the Amazon.

Patrícia explains that the geographical peculiarity of Marajó, consisting of a river-sea archipelago, is very different from other landscapes in the Amazon, which means that many Marajó residents do not see themselves as Amazonians.

For her, reinforcing the feeling of belonging to the community is one of the main objectives of the project, given that “these days it is very difficult for students to see themselves as part of a community, because everything is global. It is very important to work on these aspects and rescue this feeling of belonging”.

Other classroom studies also awakened in the young people the understanding that preserving the environment environment is related to cultural and family traditions. This case was especially highlighted in the testimony of a student, who recognized that her family had lost the custom of picking fruit after deforestation in a region known as Mata do Bacurizal.

This notion that nature is interconnected with community life and the very existence of students was consolidated through the exercise “Open Letter to Generations”, produced by the 1st grade classes. The students addressed both previous and future generations, assessing the conditions in which they received the world and how they intend to make them better.

“It was a conversation between three generations through a letter. The current generation talks to the previous one, showing the challenges they are facing because of all the development, and points out possible practices that they themselves should adopt to improve the situation”, recalls the teacher.

Finally, another activity that had an impact on the students was “Agricultural Techniques and Land Use”. The students went into the field to interview small farmers and diagnosed a difficult reality in which credit for investments and technical knowledge to increase rural productivity are still not very accessible in the region. On the other hand, the pedagogical practice also stimulated the understanding of how agriculture in its context of local economic activity influences the food base of each Amazonian family.

In the second half of 2024, the same group of teachers intends to expand the experience and implement Human Sciences modules of the program.

The Itinerários Amazônicos program is an initiative of the Iungo Institute, the Reúna Institute and the Uma Concertação pela Amazônia network, in partnership and with investments from BNDES, the Hydro Sustainability Fund, the Arapyaú Institute, the Bem Maior Movement and sponsorship from Vale.