Educación Ambiental Intercultural: una estrategia didáctica para el cuidado del ambiente en el sexto grado de la Unidad Educativa Comunitaria Intercultural Bilingüe “Sisid”

Abstract

This research paper proposes Intercultural Environmental Education (EAI) as a basis for a dialogue of knowledge and community praxis towards sensitivity environmental. This principle was worked on in the sixth grade of Basic General Education of the Unidad Educativa Intercultural Bilingüe “Sisid”. As a method, the Participatory Action Research (IAP) was used, which is composed of three phases: diagnosis, proposal and application. Among the research techniques and instruments applied during the process are: the semistructure interview and in-depth interview, the participating observation and the focus group, the same ones that allowed to diagnose and to know the environmental reality and environmental knowledges present in the Educational Community. The analysis of the information followed the precepts defined for the definition of the social representations. Based on recognition of the various perceptions of nature, it was determined that notions still persist in the community that recognize nature as a whole, where each element interacts and is part of it. This is reflected in the words of a participant who mentions: “the environment is the pacha mama that comes to be a whole and integrates the plants, the animals and people. No one is more or less, they all come to be like brothers. The environment is part of us and we are part of it.” So, this research took a cross-cutting sense, revitalizing environmental knowledges and permeating them around a selected environmental issue, that for Sisid's case was the handling of solid plastic-related waste. This reflection has led us to build didactic activities that respond to this intercultural perspective in a constant dialogue of knowledges, that allows to generate a process of affective relationship in the student population through the respect and care of the Pachamama- Madre Tierra, and strengthen that intrinsic relationship human being – nature. Finally, practical teaching brochure was developed that includes all the didactic activities carried out.