Teaching Meteorology and Climatology in the Continuing Education of the Civil Defense and Protection Agent: Case Study in the Semi-Arid Region of Northeast Brazil

Abstract

An investigation is presented on the teaching of Meteorology in training and in training courses (continuing education) offered to civil protection and defense agents working in states in the Semi-Arid Region of Northeast Brazil (RSANEB). An electronic questionnaire was used with fifteen questions regarding the participants’ knowledge about the meteorological phenomena that modulate the RSANEB climate, about the disasters associated with extreme climatic events (droughts and floods), and about the continued training of civil defense and defense agents operating in the region. The results show that in order to be able to understand the dynamics of these phenomena and, with that, develop plans with actions (preventive, responsive and recovery) to mitigate the effects of the impacts of climatic variability observed in their communities, the process of training agents of protection and civil defense that work in RSANEB needs to undergo reformulations, including and/or reinforced the workload of teaching contents on the basic knowledge of meteorological phenomena that modulate the climate and can cause disasters (droughts or floods) in the region.

Keywords
meteorology; climatology teaching; continuing education of the civil defense