The Municipal School Karla Patricia, located in a mangrove area called Park of the Manguezais, in Recife, Pernambuco, exists, among other functions, to contribute to the conservation of the park, through the Environmental Education. However, before accomplishing any action in the Environmental Education field, it is necessary to show what are the perceptions of the school staff and students. Based on the Theory of the Social Representations of Serge Moscovici (1961) and using the EVOC software, theresearch intended to identify the School Basic Learning professors and students social representations of the mangrove ecosystem, with the intention of offering subsidies that assist in Environmental Education for the conservation of the local ecosystem. To identify such representations, qualitative research was used with 92% of professors and 25% of the students in the school. From the professors' social representations it was shown that, although they know about the mangrove ecosystem, they do not know about the Park of the Manguezais, nor the planned Environmental Education. They need more information to assist them in this direction. Their representations are naturalistic. They have, a vision of the nature to appreciate, to take care of and to respect, but one in which man is not included as part of the context. The students, although they do not have systemic knowledge regarding the mangrove, they know the Park of the Manguezais better, and their representations are concerned with pollution.
social representations; mangrove; Environmental Education