Environmental education should permeate all teaching subjectsAccording to groups of teachers and educators, on the eve of World Environmental Education Day, this change is essential to put an end to crises affecting all humanity, such as global warming or the loss of biodiversity.
For him, They want to restore the spirit of the repealed Law on the General Regulation of the Education System (LOGSE, 1990)Ensuring the development of educational activities based on education in respect and defense of the environment and training students to critically evaluate social habits related to health, consumption and the environment, among other principles.
This has been translated Making environmental education a transversal subject It should be addressed from all curriculum areas, not just from a particular course, as is currently the case in Citizenship and Ethical Values Education.
To put this crossover into practice, It will be enough to change the explanations of mathematical problems or the subject of the articles. In celebration of World Environmental Education Day on January 26, it comes to the fore that children should write in Language class.
lack of ambition
“Subsequent laws They devote environmental education to Values Education and little else. The concept of the cross-subject of LOGSE has been forgotten, it was very innovative and aroused great hope,” lamented Federico Velázquez de Castro, president of the Spanish Association for Environmental Education, in comments to EFeverde.
So what happened to make it this way? Well, in his opinion, Subsequent governments could not get this far As the person who formulated this innovation (under the direction of Felipe González) and in addition two problems arose.
the first one Commented as topic overloadBecause, in addition to environmental education, there were also principles such as equal rights between genders and races, democracy, peace, culture, health… But it was a wrong interpretation because the subject was not the implementation of the issues or the expansion of the existing ones. .
resistance to innovation
Secondly, “there are too few teachers and Many civil servant teachers who do not want to introduce innovations. “From my own experience as an educator, I know that this is one of the most resistant masses to innovation,” said the expert, pointing out that environmental education in primary education (teachers) is more successful because teachers are “more professional”.
Moreover, The section devoted to the environment used to be in the last section of textbooks and “I almost never had time to look at it”, and practical activities that allowed the student to truly understand and establish an emotional connection with the environment were not enough.
“Evoking an emotional connection to the environment in the student is the only way to preserve and protect. If you don’t feel like something is close to you, if you don’t understand that it needs to be protected, if you don’t understand that it needs to be protected, so it’s going to be hard to do that,” he explained.
LOMLOE, inadequate
The current education law (LOMLOE, 2021) contains terms restricted to the subject of values such as climate change, sustainable development or environmental crisis. Occurs once in Primary and once in SecondaryMiriam Leirós, Spanish coordinator of Teacher of the Future, an international teacher movement against the climate crisis, tells EFeverde in detail.
“This is absolutely insufficient. Environmental education needs to be taught in a transversal way, just like in every aspect of life we benefit or harm the environment,” according to Leirós, who regrets that environmental education often depends on the teacher’s personal affinity for solving these problems in your own field.
“It should be moved to every region”Because environmental education depends on knowing the carbon footprint of the food you eat; Since eating something local and moderate is not the same as eating something imported, it ranges from what kind of impact the clothes you buy have to whether you go to the training center in groups or not. transportation or driving, wasted water, etc.
According to Leirós, this can be addressed across all subjects, for example by changing the wording of math problems to focus on the calculations involved in those subjects, or as simply as asking students to write essays about how they recycle at home or how they recycle. They save water.
Work on environmental news or major in natural and social sciences What is the journey of an imported fruit? What comes to our table out of season is in other ways.
“For environmental education to permeate society, it needs to be transversal. It’s not about buying a hybrid car to pollute less, it’s not about polluting less, it’s about understanding that.” Every area of life has its markWe think that we are facing an ecological crisis and that we must have sufficient knowledge to confront it.
beyond school
However, for this change to occur, it is not enough to just provide education at school or high school. you should also homeschool and in the neighborhood both experts argued.
“We don’t have time for students to become adults and take precautions because these measures need to be taken as soon as possible. There needs to be consistency between the information given in the classroom and at home so that interests do not conflict,” he stated. Leirós.
Although he defended Avoid disaster messages that “don’t reach people”, emphasized that we should all know that if we do not change, life will go backwards with the comforts we know today; also that individual action is crucial and that there are means of social pressure to push leaders to make decisions.
Educate adults too
“Environmental education is not just for children. Children learn from adults and Those who harm the environment are adults, not children. That’s why it’s important that it reaches families and the entire community,” said Velázquez de Castro.
It is important that it reaches children, because in many cases they become the “peripheral representatives” of the family, but it also needs to reach adults, who “cannot convey something that they do not believe or believe in.” qualified.”
“There is a wide repertoire of initiatives that offer environmental education activities, but if people don’t go or don’t do it to the degree we want, what we have to do is go where the people are. So that’s where we go. Neighborhood associations, political parties, unions, administrations, professional associations, etc.” he added.
………..
Contact address of the environmental department:[email protected]