Under the framework of the “National Biodiversity Strategy and Taruca Project “, teacher trainings were held on September 22nd and 23rd in La Rioja Capital and Chilecito (Argentina), respectively, with the aim of establishing a multiplying project on biodiversity education.
The training was conducted by an inter-institutional collaboration between the Department of Wildlife and Conservation of the Nation´s Biodiversity, and the Ministry of Environment of the province of La Rioja, and it was attended by a total of 600 teachers from primary, secondary, and university levels, from both public and private institutions; interested in reflecting on the role of schools in the conservation of the biodiversity.
They were imparted by Luis Acton and Barbara Saulesleja, technicians from the Department of Wildlife and Biodiversity Conservation.
The main topics discussed were biodiversity in environmental education and the natural heritage of La Rioja, vegetation and wildlife in Argentina, the Taruca as a Natural Monument and endangered species, the development of environmental projects, and the Earth Charter and its educational value.
¨For us, the Earth Charter gives us the ethical framework to include environmental matters in the classroom. During the workshop, we observed what human values are necessary to implement in order to conserve biodiversity¨, said Barbara Saulesleja, technician of the Department of Wildlife and Biodiversity Conservation and one of the facilitators of the training.
The activities held included dynamics and tools to use in the classroom, along with the methodology of environmental education and its importance in relation to the conservation of the biodiversity.
The modality of the training is partially online and in presence, divided into two stages: the in presence phase in which the contents are developed and the activities are proposed, and the online phase, in which the teachers must reflect what they learned in the training through a multiplying activity in the classroom or in their communities, which they later present to the other participants.