Mobile Garden: Seeding the Knowledge to Harvest the Sustainability in the School

This study aimed to find the prior and acquired knowledge of students along the sustainability theme reusing PET bottles for the construction of a mobile kitchen garden in the school environment. The study was developed in four steps with students of the 8th grade of the basic education of a public school of Dourados, MS, Brazil, in the period from September to November 2011. Step 1- Application of the questionnaire (1) to evaluate the prior knowledge of the students in relation to the sustainability theme; Step 2- Application of the environmental sensitization lecture; Step 3- Mounting of the mobile kitchen garden; Step 4- Application of the final questionnaire (2). By the results obtained from the questionnaire 1, it was observed that the students present very few widespread concepts and sometimes erroneous regarding the sustainability. After analysis of the questionnaire 2 applied at the end of the study developed with the students, it was observed that there was relevance in relation to the prior knowledge of the students. According to this study, the school is the adequate environment to develop practical and simple activities such as the mobile kitchen garden with PET bottles, since besides stimulating the students to practice sustainability, it contributes satisfactorily to the formation of citizens more concerned with the environment and in the construction of knowledge.