Environmental education and rurality: Reflections for the ecuadorian context

Abstract

Ecuador is the most deforested country worldwide in proportion to its surface area of 256.370 square kilometers. In addition to oil exploitation, which has been displaced in recent years, large-scale mining expansion worries that is projected in rural areas of the country. To modify that trend should be the main challenge for environmental education. When the forests are destroyed, to expand the agricultural or mining frontier, an impact on all-natural resources is generated. Based on this approach, the concern arises to publish this article, written in essay mode, which focuses on analyzing the incidence as an instrument of social transformation and management of natural resources in rural areas. Likewise, it reflects on the nature of rural education from different points of view to understand the teaching-learning process in situ, transformative, and contextualized to the socio-economic, cultural, and cognitive specificities of children and young people in rural areas. It is concluded that environmental education should be an education for participation and, ultimately, for self-management of the environment, as the optimal way to conserve the Ecuadorian mega-diversity