Strengthening of the SEP project for the creation of sustainable school environments

Abstract

Projects must be included sustainable development, ensuring a reduction in inequality, and involving actions aimed at generating, among citizens, training in ethical values, which guarantees responsibility, knowledge, and ability to jointly identify and face the solution to environmental problems and promote social participation and environmental education [1]. In these terms, education for sustainability requires strategies in values ​​that must be worked from home and reinforced by practices in schools. However, education for sustainability is part of the general pedagogical activity, between fields and spectra of knowledge, thinking, and learning. Thus, it turns out that education for sustainability becomes part of the school systems and must even be part of the curricula. Moreover, learning about sustainability is essential to change our current mentality that endangers our survival and our planet [2].

In environmental education, values ​​must be recognized, concepts clarified, and attitudes and skills promoted to understand and appreciate the interrelationships between humans, culture, and the environment [3]. Many debates have taken place in Colombia regarding the management given to the issue of environmental education; However, from the political conception and the decision-makers, they began to ask whether initiatives for environmental education have been developed in Colombia. Why is there no social change today in the face of the environment? How have actions been focused on environmental education? What are the obstacles that exist to train the new citizens that the country requires? [4].

This project shows some strategies that strengthen the project "School Environmental Program (SEP)" of the Ministry of National Education. The objective is to improve environmental education in all country educational institutions, guided by parameters that involve the educational community and are a tool effective for building sustainable school environments. Initially, a diagnosis is made on the most representative environmental problems of the Antonio Nariño school from Cajicá, Cundinamarca, Colombia. The project is then analyzed to design and execute a series of concrete strategies to strengthen this project and search for possible solutions supported by education for sustainability. This will serve as a tool to make students aware of their production and consumption practices. Thus, strengthening ethical values ​​that guarantee knowledge, responsibility, and the use of resources to create sustainable school environments. Figures 1 and 2 show part of the results of the study analysis.