Students from all over Spain finish the school year and begin their summer vacations, finishing a course in which Environmental education has played a leading role thanks to Naturaliza, the Ecoembes environmental education project. And in this 2023/2024 academic year, more than 31,400 students from 515 schools across the country have learned environmental values in their classrooms thanks to the commitment of the 736 teachers who are part of this project.
With the help of Naturaliza, Teachers from all over Spain have had training and tools to integrate environmental education transversally in their daily teachings, in addition to participating in outings outside the classroom to, from experience, teach to respect and value the natural environment and to make responsible use of resources. Thus, the teachers who are part of the project seek to ensure that boys and girls learn, reflect and become aware of their individual role in caring for the environment. And they do so by addressing issues such as climate change, loss of biodiversity, water scarcity, the circular economy or pollution, not only in the subject of Natural Sciences, but also in Social Sciences, Spanish Language and Literature, and Math.
Furthermore, Naturaliza’s environmental perspective has reached teachers and students through various educational proposals. The last of them is “Fill your luggage with environmental learning!” which encourages students and teachers to take stock of what they have learned and not forget to “pack in their vacation suitcase” everything they have learned this course to take care of the environment.
A course closing activity that is added to others such as Round Week, which during the five school days of the week in which World Environmental Education Day is celebrated (January 26), proposed activities in which it encouraged students to actively express their commitment to living in harmony with nature. Also the Biodiversity Workshops in collaboration with the Spanish Association of Environmental Education (AEEA), an educational proposal with which students learned about the importance of biological diversity and learned good practices for its conservation in a dynamic way.
Naturaliza has also promoted the outdoor classes or online workshops for teachers on the circular economywaste management in schools, reconnection of students with the natural environment or the school garden as an educational tool, in collaboration with the Global Nature Foundation.
“Education is an essential tool for change that helps us instill environmental values in new generations. For this reason, we are happy to see how Naturaliza continues to grow year after year, reaching more centers in Spain, with the commitment to bring an environmental perspective, care for the natural environment and responsibility in the use of limited resources to the classrooms. that our planet offers us,” explains Nieves Rey, Director of Communication and Marketing at Ecoembes.
Since its creation in 2018, Naturaliza has managed to bring together more than 2,700 teachers from 1,749 schools in Spain in its network, promoting environmental education among more than 124,140 students. Teachers interested in being part of this project in the next school year can register for free through the Naturaliza website.