Assessing the outcomes and impacts of the implementation of environmental education projects focused on social change still constitutes a relevant challenge. The absence of tools and processes to assess properly environmental education projects is deemed nowadays an obstacle to the development of such projects. Unsurprisingly, there are assessment gaps in Brazil concerning PEAs (Portuguese acronym for Environmental Education Projects), whose objectives are social organization and mobilization vis-á-vis public environmental management. To fill this gap, an assessment model of environmental education projects as applied in the licensing process managed by IBAMA (Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources) was developed. This public authority is the licensing agent of oil and gas offshore drilling, and therefore establishes the rules companies must adhere to in order to operate safeguarding environmental quality standards. Among them, PEAs are mandatory projects designed to mitigate drilling activity impacts on coastal communities. This approach originated in a doctoral research model, producing an Assessment Model that proved to be a breakthrough, once it: a) establishes criteria to be used in measuring variables of qualitative nature, making the assessment process less subjective; b) works Environmental Education under a transformative concept; c) launches a synthesis between quantitative and qualitative methodological approach; and d) contemplates integrated and hierarchized indicators associated with objectives and projects with a focus on social change and on efficiency, efficacy, effectivity and equal rights parameters. It is now structured on 20 integrated performance indicators. The assessment model test research (developed by Dommo Energia, a gas and oil drilling company, under licensing requirements) counted on the participation of 79 professionals, among project managers and IBAMA team. Participation on an equal basis was instrumental for building the Model, such as in raising data and as in meta-assessment, whose main goal was to guarantee indicators reassessment, thus improving them. The result shows that the assessment model contributes to produce insights, to foster the democratization of information and to strengthen the identification of results and impacts of environmental education projects. Due to the vast array of environmental education projects in the research and in the methodological construction of the assessment model, this model is deemed compatible with the multiplicity of existing environmental education projects. This concerns both projects focusing changes in society and in the environment, and less complex ones whose aim is to convey social and environmental information. This model was made effective in 2018 in the form of self-assessment on the part of companies. IBAMA is responsible for monitoring the whole assessment process, reporting its results to society. This assessment process enables the tracking of social changes, in space and time, fostered by environmental education projects. It describes the level of organization and participation of the social groups affected by these environmental education projects in the public environmental management.
Key words: environmental education, impact assessment, participation
2b. Educating for sustainability
