This article aims to express, briefly, some reflections on the importance of environmental education in the social field; it is about showing in a practical way the challenge that means for a globalized society like ours, the design and implementation of environmental education models that really show their effectiveness and capacity to become agents that generate social practices that integrate environmental as a transversal element to the whole process of conceptual integration of the human being, without ignoring the historical and geographical contexts in which the educational action is framed. It includes, among other authors, E. Morin as a thinker capable of inviting subverting the classic ways of approaching the subject of the complex as a need for thought and therefore opening up the possibility of creative and differentiating thought that understands that the understanding of reality cannot be framed in simple categories that, perhaps,they were proposed as alternatives for the intuition of a reality that is predicated as complex. So then, that the complex is the alternative of the simple (Morin, 1994) and at the same time it is a warning and a call to humility, which in my opinion, refers again to the first Greek philosophers who recognize life as a unrepeatable dynamics and in which it is not easy to return to experiences already lived (Heraclitus).refers again to the first Greek philosophers who recognize life as an unrepeatable dynamic and in which it is not easy to return to experiences already lived (Heraclitus).refers again to the first Greek philosophers who recognize life as an unrepeatable dynamic and in which it is not easy to return to experiences already lived (Heraclitus).
Knowledge, then, passes through the experience that is lived in everyday life and that is reported as an input to knowledge, allowing the establishment of conceptual models that guide the necessary expressions in environmental training processes that address the evidence of a rationality that arises from different points and not only from the unidirectional or one-dimensional as H. Marcuse proposes, for whom education is the expression of the reality principle capable of transforming existing models into new experiences that make present the utopia that was terminated. On the other hand, it is necessary to consider the possibility of promoting a new rationality that has the capacity to generate new alternatives in knowledge and in doing (Caride 2008) so thatthe environmental is enriched from within thought itself and not considered as an element whose value lies in its exteriority and its usefulness, as we can see today.
Environmental education, for its part, should NOT be understood as a compound term but in itself has its own meaning, this means that it is not really a surname or an external agent to what is education itself. In this sense, I want to briefly reflect on the importance that education, as such, was given by the first recognized philosophers such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, who are reiterative in showing education as an integral process that seeks knowledge as the supreme object of thought, that is to say that there is an internal model in each person that allows us not only to develop an episteme capable of identifying the ontological categories of being, but in parallel,Reality is recognized through a hermeneutic that easily places us in a positive model of action against reality.
Environmental education then appears as a challenge for the formal structures of societies and especially of the states that integrate the environment as a transversal element in the formation of generations capable of sensitizing themselves to the possibility and responsibility that they have with the environment. Unfortunately, for many authors and especially for many readers of these authors, environmental education are still two terms that together mean something and that certainly have nothing to do with the purpose of those who proactively investigate the new scope for the term.
The design of educational strategies, which undoubtedly have gained strength and relevance in recent times and even popularity after the conferences and conventions that bring together those who consider that it is worth investing in environmental education, have allowed these desiderata to stop being dreams and gradually begin to become tangible evidence that environmental education makes some sense in a world that seems to demonstrate the opposite on a daily basis. In this sense, it seems important to me to recall the words of Principle 19 of the Stockholm Declaration, which from that time announced that “ education in environmental matters, aimed at both young generations and adults, is indispensable and to pay due attention to the least privileged sector of the population… ”(Stockholm, 1972) in such a way that environmental education is a project capable of transcending time.
The strategy must be inclusive and allow social transformation to emerge from full conviction of the ability to create effective and practical models and tools to make the possibility of environmental research a reality as promoter of the encounter between experience and concept, of intention and action.
Of special relevance are the pedagogical approaches that pass from the positivist, the interpretive, critical and interactive / ecosystem partner, from which I consider it important to mention that the environmental researcher also becomes an educator while observing reality. Environmental education is affirmed in these approaches and in each one of them it has developed theories and models that have been adapted and adopted by different schools of thought and therefore have generated a good input for the debate in the sense that, on occasions, dogmatic positions are strengthened that prevent recognizing the positive from other ways of seeing and approaching reality. These approaches, however, have been generated in an instrumentalist and not necessarily diverse model of thought, that is, each of them,Although they represent a different approach to educational and environmental reality, they have a common origin from rationality, that is, that modernism continues to be the source of their epistemological origin, which makes them interlocutors who do not represent opposite parts of the discourse but different faces of the same ideological model.
This leads me to put to your consideration what I see as the great challenges of environmental education for the 21st century and which are based, among other things, on what the national environmental policy suggests, where the scope is “a culture environmentally friendly, equitable and non-violent, that understands and respects regional and ethnic differences… ”(Environmental education policy). In this sense, I propose the four great challenges that can be formulated as follows:
1. Environmental education as a purpose that transcends the school environment.For some years now it has been clear that the school space is only one of the territories in which you can sensitize, train and develop knowledge, skills and attitudes aimed at recognizing nature as one more member of what has been called the totality. There are other spaces that have been gradually colonized by environmental education, such as, for example, citizenship as social behavior that expresses the specific culture of a community. required to approach a more environmentally friendly management;In this sense, efforts are oriented to go beyond the norm or the legal requirement and activities are promoted in organizations that aim to reinforce what has been learned in other settings. However, the evidence says there are no integrated and comprehensive projects that relate, in terms of content or methodology, what is taught in school with what is taught in other social settings, therefore it continues to be a challenge that little by little begins to gain supporters and thus make environmental education a matter of public management and not just an isolated or particular effort that, in many occasions, does not respond to the real needs of the social contexts in which it develops.in terms of content or methodology, what is taught in school with what is taught in other social settings, therefore it continues to be a challenge that little by little begins to gain support and thus make environmental education a topic of public management and not only an isolated or particular effort that, in many occasions, does not respond to the real needs of the social contexts in which it is developed.in terms of content or methodology, what is taught in school with what is taught in other social settings, therefore it continues to be a challenge that little by little begins to gain support and thus make environmental education a topic of public management and not only an isolated or particular effort that, in many occasions, does not respond to the real needs of the social contexts in which it is developed.
2. The environment as a relevant point on the education agenda. Environmental education ends up being, in many cases, a punctual teaching expression dictated by a person full of good intentions but without greater relevance or impact on the institution, in such a way that their efforts end up being adjectives and little valued. Education, as the key to the future (Barker), must integrate the environmental as a necessary and required element in the process of adaptation, training, development and transformation into its conceptual and epistemological essence. Therefore, the so-called transdisciplinarity is required, which allows "addressing problems from multiple perspectives" (McDonell, 1998) and in this sense the challenge is to recognize that educational models, regardless of the ideological origin to which they want to enroll, containa call to extract those systems of thought that allow us to understand that environmental education is required not as a pretext but as a context, in such a way that it can be included beyond fashion.
3. The environmental educator as manager of new realities. This challenge is inspired by everything that the pedagogical efforts of Paulo Freire meant for the continent and for the libertarian current that crossed it in the 60s and 70s, and which took shape in what was called “liberation pedagogy” and whose flags They concretize in their text “pedagogy of the oppressed” (Freire 1970) that express a movement that, above all, revolts from the status quo and that aims to offer alternatives, not only to those who have been forgotten by the system, but also to all those that they recognize themselves as oblivious to the reality that is imposed on them to live, to all those who identify alienation as a dissociating element from the reality required in the history that is lived; the liberation of thought occurs simultaneously with other expressions of rupture that was called postmodernism,current that says a lot for many or nothing for those who see it as a simple adjustment to the reality of the peoples. The environmental educator acquires, then, a dimension that is recognized through the results obtained, in this way we can see that a tidal wave of trends appears that fight for the title of which of them is the most dogmatic and have become plaited in an internal battle that As a consequence, it has begun to lose credibility in certain ways of approaching the defense of the environment from an educational point of view.In this way we can see that a tidal wave of trends appears that are fighting for the title of which of them is the most dogmatic and have become plaited in an internal battle that has resulted in the loss of credibility in certain ways of addressing the defense of the environmental from the educational.In this way we can see that a tidal wave of trends appears that are fighting for the title of which of them is the most dogmatic and have become plaited in an internal battle that has resulted in the loss of credibility in certain ways of addressing the defense of the environmental from the educational.The environmental educator has a responsibility that he must rediscover every day through his own actions and that lead him to be a champion of new feats that are recognized in the academic fields but also where the battle is fought for the permanence of the species over the earth.
4. Environmental education as a strategy for social transformation. In line with the above, I consider that one of the great challenges has to do precisely with the capacity of environmental education in the transformation processes that allow us to lead to methods where social changes allow us to lead fairer societies and therefore capable of recognizing ourselves. as a necessary part of an ecosystem that guarantees their permanence in the territory. I think that integrating Benjamin Bloom's taxonomic model, which identifies the complexity of learning from the perspective of understanding knowledge, is of the greatest relevance in the training processes. In this sense, the educator has before him the immense task of recognizing at what level is your audience and thus design a strategy that allows you to ensure understanding of the content in those who listen to you. In fact,One of the evidences of the failure of social transformation processes has to do with inadequate educational designs that do not overcome the information barrier.
Finally, it is important to point out that environmental education has great challenges before it, but also great support; Although it is true that after almost 40 years the results do not seem to be as expected, this is not the time to lose heart or enthusiasm, but on the contrary, it is an opportunity to discover new strategies that allow putting in place alternatives capable of convening to other sectors of knowledge to generate a future not only possible but achievable; Environmental education also has a long way to go and obstacles can be overcome if it provides strong and solid evidence that its task has been done responsibly and that it is integrating new instances. Credibility,It is one of these forces and to the extent that its investigative model and its praxis is credible, it will generate sufficient confidence to play a leading role, as recommended by Thessaloniki in recommending, "That support be provided for research on interdisciplinary teaching methods and the evaluation of the impact of relevant educational programs ”(Thessaloniki, 1997).
