Geography students broaden their perspective on professional practices

A whole week to train the geographic perspective. This was the objective of the technical visit carried out by students from the UFRN Geography course, under the guidance of professors Lutiane Queiroz de Almeida and Francisco Jablinski Castelhano. The activity provided different learning, involving teaching, research and extension, in six days of intense programming.
On November 29th, the UFRN bus left towards Maceió (AL), in order to show and discuss with the class the impacts arising from rock salt exploration. The visit was accompanied by members of the Civil Defense of Maceió and professor Nivaneide Alves, from the Federal University of Alagoas (UFAL), who are knowledgeable about local issues.
Student Eduardo Teixeira tells what he felt when visiting the flooded regions due to the exploitation of rock salt there. “Although the field research was quite enriching and encouraging in terms of observation, the scenario proved to be quite sensitive, because, when we consider all the environmental problems and the consequences that this disaster brought and still brings to the population, the long road ahead to mitigate the damage caused by the company becomes clear”, he says.
The group continued on a trip to visit the Paulo Afonso Hydroelectric Plant, in the state of Bahia, and then the Rio São Francisco Canyon, in Alagoas. These moments allowed students to put research techniques in Physical Geography into practice, identifying geological formations, as well as landforms and types of vegetation in the landscape monuments that are part of the territories visited.
The visit extended to Canudos, where there was contact with the locations of the Canudos War and Raso da Catarina, a dry and semi-arid region of the Caatinga. The proposal was to correlate physical geography with other areas of knowledge, teaching in practice how it is possible to work with geography in a systematic and interdisciplinary way, highlights Vinicius Germano, also a student on the course, who participated in the experience.
At the end of the technical visit, the group returned with a series of new experiences and understandings, offered by contact with reality. “We acquired knowledge and experiences that helped in modeling geography within each undergraduate student”, concludes student Fátima Gonçalves.
 
The activity provided different learning, involving teaching, research and extension – Photo: Lutiane Almeida