Environmental education: an unfinished task in school environmental projects

Abstract

Environmental Education (EA) in Colombia was effectively institutionalized as of the promulgation of Decree 1743 of 1994, through School Environmental Projects (PRAEs) as one of the environmental training strategies, thus, its formulation and execution must be based on a curricular component that tends to develop values, from interdisciplinarity, participation, training for democracy, management, and resolution of problems in the regional context. The research characterized the current state of the PRAEs of the official urban and rural Educational Institutions (IE) of basic and secondary education of the municipality of Montería, in relation to the regulatory requirements for their construction and dynamization. Through a documentary review, using an Excel percentage matrix for analysis and supported by interviews with focus groups of teachers, which were analyzed from the hermeneutic-interpretive paradigm. The results show that, in most EIs, projects are executed in isolation from academic management, leaving aside didactic principles of transversality, interdisciplinarity and comprehensiveness of the curriculum and generally led by Natural Sciences teachers. It is concluded that these projects have not made it possible to consolidate a comprehensive environmental education that takes into account natural and socio-cultural aspects and the improvement of the quality of educational communities.