The Ability to Act as an Environmental Educator for University Students

Abstract

This work shares the dialectic coming and going of experiences and states of mind of teachers faced with the difficulty of being equal to the high industrialization that "civilization" has brought to Latin America. Aware that the teaching of the social sciences necessarily requires the community counterpart, student interaction with people in the communities becomes part of the didactic strategy. The two-way education is then generated: from the school to the community and, the strongest, from the community to the school. In this scheme, the construction of citizenship goes hand in hand with the sustainable educational process, recognizing environmental setbacks as common. The educational process includes sustainable development in its three dimensions: social, economic and environmental. The environmental becomes the subject to be taught, but it must be understood within the economic model to consider its possibilities. In the social aspect, the construction of a global citizenship demands a deep knowledge of the culture and history of the community, of students and teachers. The appropriate combination of all of them will consolidate the social capital of the learning community. This research is based on the findings of a group of university students from the state of Yucatan, Mexico, regarding how the community has influenced their professional vision. The research questions that arise immediately are: The knowledge and theories taught today are enough to be at the level of reality? Are the actions we favor the best, the most assertive and in accordance with what the context demands?