Contributions from the Field of Design to Environmental Education in Elementary School

Part of the doctoral research project “Partnership networks and the enabling of empowering activities in nature with children from Petropolis’ municipal schools,” developed in the Interdisciplinary Design Education Laboratory within the Design Graduate Program at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, this article seeks to present how Design has contributed to the implementation of empowering activities with children in Petropolis’ municipal schools. These activities integrate life, science and arts and are made possible by local, community-based networks, in partnership with the schools. For this purpose, an articulation is weaved between three focal cuts in the thesis in progress: the relevance of working based on the “realism that matters” (“matter realism”), present in (post)qualitative research; the research fieldwork guided by PUC-Rio’s`Partnership Design methodology; and Victor Papanek’s (1971) vision on how Design and Education dialogue, aiming at overwhelming and empowering learning experiences, illuminating their decisive contributions to environmental education, the thesis’ theme.