PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES WITH STINGLESS BEES IN BASIC EDUCATION

Abstract

This article examines pedagogical practices with stingless bees in basic education, in connection with environmental education and with the formative potential of educational meliponaries. It is grounded in the understanding that the presence of these insects in community practices, local knowledge, and educational experiences offers schools a productive theme for interdisciplinary work. Rather than restricting the subject to the expository transmission of content, the article argues that mediated contact with stingless bee colonies can foster systematic observation, question formulation, and the construction of explanations about pollination and biodiversity, while also opening space for discussions on socio-environmental responsibilities, public policies, and the ethical management of living beings. Methodologically, this study is based on qualitative bibliographical research, supplemented by documentary analysis of regulatory and curricular frameworks. The corpus brings together studies on didactic meliponaries, pedagogical intervention proposals, and syntheses of school practices involving native bees, in dialogue with the Federal Constitution, the National Environmental Education Policy, the National Common Core Curriculum, and CONAMA Resolution No. 496/2020. The analysis shows that pedagogical practices involving stingless bees can support the integration of knowledge from Science, Geography, Portuguese Language, and Mathematics, provided that their use is linked to pedagogical planning, institutional continuity, and teacher mediation. The reviewed studies further indicate that the formative strength of this theme depends on concrete conditions, including infrastructure, teacher preparation, maintenance routines, adequate physical space, and compliance with environmental regulations. At the same time, the literature suggests that proposals of this nature gain greater density when they move beyond isolated awareness-raising actions and become connected to longer-term investigative processes, in dialogue with the territory and with contemporary socio-environmental issues. The article concludes that pedagogical work with stingless bees, when conducted with regulatory responsibility and didactic intentionality, can constitute a solid axis for environmental education in basic education.