ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM IN INITIAL SCIENCE (BIOLOGY AND CHEMISTRY) TEACHER EDUCATION: TERRITORIAL KNOWLEDGE AND PERCEPTIONS OF PRESERVICE TEACHERS FROM NORTHERN BRAZIL

Abstract

This article analyzes how preservice Science (Biology and Chemistry) teachers at a higher education institution in Northern Brazil perceive environmental racism, linking the discussion to Brazilian policies on Environmental Education and Education for Ethnic-Racial Relations. This qualitative, exploratory study involved 19 respondents; data collected through a Google Forms questionnaire were analyzed using Discursive Textual Analysis. Participants draw on a territorial reading of socio-environmental injustices grounded in Amazonian realities, such as mercury contamination linked to gold mining, fires on Indigenous lands, and stilt housing without sanitation, and recognize that Black and peripheral populations are the most affected by environmental problems. They state that their program values traditional knowledge and social justice, but that environmental racism has not been addressed in their coursework and that they do not feel prepared to teach it, a gap the literature identifies nationwide. We conclude that this territorial knowledge is a privileged starting point for explicitly and systematically integrating environmental racism into initial Science, Biology, and Chemistry teacher education, aiming at teachers who are not only non-racist but antiracist.