Importance of Environmental Education in Environmental Sustainability

Abstract

Environmental Education is an important mechanism for the transformation of the human being to promote the development of critical thinking and to seek, through the balance between man and the environment, the sustainability of the planet. The objective of this study is to describe the importance of environmental education in the sustainability of the environment. This is an integrative literature review, the surveys were carried out in February and March of 2023, following its design in six stages: Formation of the research question; literature search; categorization of studies; evaluation of those included; interpretation of results and synthesis of knowledge. To search for articles, the following databases were used: Scientific Electronic Library Online (SCIELO); Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online (MEDLINE) and Latin American and Caribbean Literature on Health Sciences (LILACS), using the following keywords: environmental education, sustainability and environment. The selection complied with the inclusion/exclusion criteria of articles available in full and free of charge, between the years 2019 to 2023, in Portuguese, English and Spanish. Studies that were inconclusive and/or repetitive were excluded. The results showed that environmental education is an important tool that connects the human being and the environment, where it can transform the individual's thinking and develop the collective responsibility of society in the search for a sustainable and balanced world.