Geotecnologias na educação para gestão das águas: mapeamento geoparticipativo 3P

This book brings to teachers and other interested parties the experiences of a group of researchers,
students and activists over a period of 5 years of research and action in territories with water basins.
We use a method which we have called the 3P method. This method aims to involve community leaders
and schools in identification, mapping, reflection and discussion of Problems and Potential of
hydrographic basins as well as opening a glimpse of future Possibilities for these territories. The book
includes essential points for improving the water basin. This serves to reinforce and/or create the
possibility of dialogues at local level. The 3P approach includes:
 Negative features of the place/territory - Problems
 Positive features of the place/territory – Potential
 Features to be improved in the place/territory – Possibilities

The development and application of this methodology included moments of mishaps, learning and
adapting, with of dialogue, both in the academic milieu and in the schools, the most precious space for
action. Working with invisible and dynamic geographic territories where rivers and streams flow, often
hidden from view, requires fluidity in order to perceive and comprehend the processes of mutation in
the territories and how these influence the rivers. In the midst of the intensifying water crisis being
experienced in various Brazilian cities, it is important to encourage teacher to ask: what is the role of
education in this process? Maintaining the water supply does not depend only on the quantity of
rainfall (or the good will of Saint Peter), but on a variety of actions linked to the efficient management of
the territory and its water sources. There is an entanglement of connections which links the
hydrographic network to peoples’ lives, to soil usage, to economic production and to waste generation.
Teachers play a very important training role in untangling the connections. In this sense we are thinking
of education as something that goes well beyond environment training, of repetitive admonitions not to
litter and not to waste water. It is not that we don’t need to these reminders but transformative
education, in the words of Paulo Freire (1996) is something that allows us to “read the world.” Reading
the world goes beyond admonitions of what we should and should not do; it goes beyond what Brugger
(2004) calls environmental training. To understand the water crisis means comprehending its socio-
environmental facets, including their political dimensions.
The methodology described and presented here is an instrument for comprehending the complexities
involved in maintaining water quality and quantity. It can serve to empower teachers, students and
community leader to build local, participatory water management. The “reading” of the territory of a
water basin, the production of systematic information based on geo-information, the use of
interdisciplinary knowledge and disciplines such as geography in the management of territories – all of

these together create possibilities for training critical thinking and building citizen participation. As we
build a data base and later do mapping of small, medium and large water basins, we are learning from
the geographic realities how to pose didactic and pedagogical questions; we seek to do this in the
context of the school but it could also have other applications.
We have tried to organize the book thinking how teachers could use it, but also respecting the creative
potential of the teacher in devising learning activities for their students. Because of this we came up
with the idea of a step by step format not cast in iron, which could be readily modified according to
what the teacher felt necessary, adapted to each teacher’s reality. In this way, we have directed the
material mainly to the teachers, because we believe they are essential in the construction of both
theoretical and practical knowledge and use of the geotechnical instruments so essential in the reading
of the world needed for building participatory water management. We provide geotechnical
instruments and platforms for free data sourcing which will aid the teachers. There are accessories in
the production of information about water basins such as Google Earth Pro, available free of charge,
Google Maps and Facebook among others. All of these are up to date and youth-friendly. The material
presented here was conceived in a teaching-learning format that could help teachers and environment
activists to apply the methodology starting from the experience lived by the researchers and authors.
3P Geoparticipatory Mapping
Chapters:
Introduction
Chapter 1: Hydrographic Basins: Territory for the Production and Maintenance of Waters
Chapter 2: Who Holds Responsibility for the Management of Hydrographic Basins in Brazil?
Chapter 3: Maps + Geoparticipation = Knowledge: Water Policy and Participation, Building the Water
Territory That We Want
Chapter 4: Methodology for 3P Geoparticipatory Mapping
Chapter 5: Guide for 3P Geoparticipatory Mapping
Bibliography (publications in English only)
Cosgrove, Denis. 1999. Mappings (London: Reaktion Books)
Sack, R.D. 1986. Human Territoriality: its Theory and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)