Education for sustainable development. A look at school environmental projects.

Abstract

For municipal and departmental bodies in charge of promoting environmental education, the school environmental projects can be a fundamental strategy for achieving sustainable development objectives and solving environmental problems. Through inter-institutional participation, there is a clear lack of articulation between environmental education and territorial sustainability. Some of the analytical tools of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) were adapted to verify the inclusion of the principles of sustainable development in the school environmental projects. In addition to the weaknesses in the identification of environmental problems in the context in which the Educational Institutions are immersed, it was evidenced that the projects turn towards the environmental dimension of sustainable development, leaving aside the social, economic and cultural dimensions. A joint work is proposed between the National Learning Service SENA and the Educational Institutions through the configuration of a “sustainability network” that accompanies the process from the diagnosis of the initial problematic of the context of the Educational Institutions, the formulation of the school environmental project, the execution of the proposed activities and the evaluation of the obtained achievements.