Conocimientos ecológicos, preocupación individual y criterio personal
respecto al medio ambiente en estudiantes de bachillerato de un colegio
del Quindío
..........................................
Ecological knowledge, individual concern and personal criteria regarding the
environment in high school students of a school in Quindío
Betancourth González, Vanessa
Gonzales Martínez, Nicolás
Ocampo Maya, Juliana
Orozco Ortiz, Andrés Eduardo
ABSTRACT
This is a quantitative, correlational, empirical-
analytical, cross-sectional research aimed at
identifying ecological knowledge, as well as
finding the relationship between indicators of
individual concern and personal criteria
regarding the environment in 8th, 9th, 10th,
and 11th grade high school students of an
urban educational institution in Quindío.
Among the knowledge about the environment,
recycling (58.8%), chemicals (56.4%),
biodiversity (53.7%), and water (52.7%)
prevailed; individual concern was 45.7%,
while personal criteria was 60.4%. Individual
concern has a moderate correlation with
personal criteria (p= 0.566), and high
correlation with spaces (p= 0.657). It is
concluded that the students have relative
knowledge about the environment, in which
the personal criterion prevails over the
individual concern about the environment, an
aspect that determines an individual attitude
Received: October 12, 2021
Approved: December 09, 2021
..................................
Psychologist. Ph.D. Complex thinking.
Research professor of the psychology
program at the Universidad de San
Buenaventura Medellin, Armenia
extension. Email:
jose.andrade@usbmed.edu.co;
911psicologia@gmail.com
Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-
7544-267X
Tenth semester student of the
psychology program at Universidad de
San Buenaventura Medellin, Armenia
extension. Email:
nico1497@hotmail.com
Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-
5284-3427
Tenth semester student of the
psychology program at Universidad de
San Buenaventura Medellin, Armenia
extension. Email:
Juliiocampo689@gmail.com
Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-
2573-2876
Tenth semester student of the
psychology program at Universidad de
San Buenaventura Medellin, Armenia
extension. Email:
orozco960801@gmail.com
Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-
4301-5208
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towards repair actions and a scarce awareness
of the consequences of pollution in the
medium and long term.
Keywords: environmentalism,
environmental education, personal criteria,
ecological knowledge, ecology, environmental
concern. (APA Thesaurus).
RESUMEN
Esta es una investigación cuantitativa de tipo
correlacional, empírico-analítica y de corte
transversal que tiene como objetivo identificar
los conocimientos ecológicos, al tiempo que
encontrar la relación entre indicadores de
preocupación individual y criterio personal
respecto al medio ambiente en estudiantes de
8°, 9°, 10°, y 11° grado de bachillerado de una
institución educativa urbana del Quindío.
Entre los conocimientos sobre el medio
ambiente prevalece el reciclaje (58,8%),
químicos (56,4%), biodiversidad (53,7%) y
agua (52,7%); la preocupación individual fue
del 45,7%, mientras que el criterio personal
fue de 60,4%. La preocupación individual
tiene una correlación moderada con el criterio
personal (p= 0,566), y alta con espacios (p=
0,657). Se concluye que los estudiantes tienen
conocimientos relativos sobre el medio
ambiente, en los que prima el criterio personal
sobre la preocupación individual respecto a lo
ecológico, aspecto que determina una actitud
individual hacia las acciones de reparación y
una escasa conciencia de las consecuencias de
la contaminación a mediano y largo plazo.
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Palabras clave: ambientalismo, educación
ambiental, criterio personal, conocimientos
ecológicos, ecología, preocupación ambiental.
(APA Thesaurus).
Introduction
Environmental pollution and the scarce education regarding environmental care give
shape to a problem of multiple dimensions, whose global character requires urgent
educational and political measures, which impact at local, community and social levels
the actions to counteract its harmful effects, while advocating for the repair of
ecosystems seriously altered by the hand of man (Delgado, 2010; Galeano, 2005;
Morin, 1996). In the range of reasons associated with its causes and consequences, it
is possible to consider from the educational point of view: the lack of robust ecological
knowledge, the difficulties of educational processes, given the scarce proposals,
programs and measures of environmental education, in addition, to notable
deficiencies in the generation of a solid and pro-environmental awareness and
environmental education (Diario El Tiempo, 1998; Ministerio de Medio Ambiente
Vivienda y Desarrollo Territorial - MAVDT, 2012; Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y
Desarrollo Sostenible - MMADS, 2017, 2018). Such awareness should tend to
understand the indissoluble relationship between individual-society-species (Morin,
1999), and advocate for ecological care, greening thinking, self-sustainability and
environmental recovery, which environmentally constitutes one of the greatest global
challenges (Anderson & Latam, 2018; Andrade, 2015; Revista Semana, 2017b). In
Colombia according to figures revealed by the newspaper El Espectador (2015) there
are environmental sustainability problems associated with the type of agricultural
production, and uncontrolled exploitation of mining, hydroelectric and fossil fuel
resources, as well as, environmental education, in terms of structuring an ecological
awareness around development and self-sustainability; example of this is that, the
greenhouse effect produced by the country is centered in regions such as: "Caquetá,
Putumayo, meta and Guaviare. Approximately half of the greenhouse gas emissions
come from deforestation, forest degradation and the agricultural sector" (p. 2).
Likewise, the newspaper El Tiempo (2017) indicates that in the last 30 years the
country's temperature has increased 0.8 degrees Celsius, which has caused that in
some departments between 51 and 52 centimeters of coastline is being lost each year,
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to which is added, that 40% of the soils have affectation of some degree of erosion. For
example, in the Amazon, a large number of hectares of forest area has been lost, being
this the most impacted region with 178,597 hectares affected; another global effect is
the significant decrease of ice coverage in glaciers in the last 50 years, which has been
63%, and has put approximately 12 million people at risk of flooding. According to
figures provided by the Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental
Studies (IDEAM), by 2040 the most affected departments in Colombia will be: San
Andrés, Providencia, and Santa Catalina, Atlántico, Caldas, La guajira, Cundinamarca,
Magdalena, Caquetá and Casanare. In addition to the above, there is the pollution
caused by garbage, the generalized ignorance regarding the implementation of
environmental measures, and the retreat of the land on the Colombian coasts, since by
the end of the 21st century almost 50,000 hectares of land will have been lost. IDEAM
figures reveal that in 2017 in Colombia deforestation increased by 23%, especially in
the Amazon with 65.6%, the Andes (17%), the Caribbean (7.1%), the Colombian Pacific
(6.1%), and the Orinoquia (4.5%) (Correa, June 14, 2018). The above reveals that
deforestation had an increase of 44% between the years 2015-2016, with the main
causes of forest misfortune being "land grabbing (45%), illicit crops (22%),
infrastructure (10%), forest fires (8%), extensive cattle ranching (8%) and mining
(7%)" (Revista Semana, 2017b, p. 2).
In the environmental aspect according to data referred to by the Governor's Office of
Quindío (2016), the department is currently at high risk of contamination, as it has a
high human influence on its parks and ecosystems, which concentrate up to 10% of
Colombian biodiversity in 86 ecosystems, which in terms of fauna are home to
approximately 1,500 species, with a number of 546 birds, 87 different species of
mammals, butterflies 500 species, 41 species of fish and flora with a number of 3,000
species. That said, aspects such as non-self-sustainable tourism, illegal hunting, the
introduction of new species, monoculture, the affectation of water sources by solid
waste contamination, and the indiscriminate logging of vegetation in the region are
part of the conglomerate of problems that environmentally affect the department, so
they are a small-scale reflection of what happens in other Colombian departments
(Andrade, 2017a). It is here where adequate environmental education can promote a
culture of care and protection of the environment of all the ecosystems that compose
it (Berenguer & Corraliza, 2000; Páramo & Gómez, 1997). Such education cannot go
unnoticed by governments and societies, since it implies becoming aware of aspects
such as the pedagogical work at school, community and home, the example given to
students and the globalized social empowerment on these issues, as specific actions
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and also in the generation of public policies with an environmental approach (Álvarez
& Vega, 2009; Aragonés & Amérigo, 1991; Martínez, Martínez, & Gazquez, 2008). This
implies strengthening ecological knowledge, individual concern, personal criteria and
actions for the care and protection of ecosystems (Moreno et al., 2005).
In Colombia, environmental problems also have an undeniable relationship with the
armed conflict, given that the warlike confrontations, terrorist attacks, subversive
settlements, the depredation of native species, and the fields of cultivation of base
plants for the development of illegal psychoactive substances, have drastically affected
the stability of the ecosystems, making them vulnerable to extinction and
environmental-ecosystemic degradation (Correa, 2015; Morales, 2017); in this sense
Colombia has specific challenges in terms of environmental restoration, among which
the most important and urgent are:
(...) environmental conservation, the eradication of illicit crops and illegal
mining, the development of environmentally sustainable activities and the
implementation of the Colombian Low Carbon Development Strategy. It also
considers the adaptation of a Colombia vulnerable to climate change and the
launching of programs of payments for ecosystem services that promote the
conservation of strategic areas (Revista Semana, 2017a, p. 1).
In these elements, the concept of environmental education is inherent in each process,
taking into account that this concept has changed according to the ideas of ecosystem,
sustainability, preservation, environmental awareness and environment. Currently,
the preservation of natural environments and species is integrated with technological,
social, cultural, industrial, political and economic dimensions, which are essential to
understand human interactions with ecosystems and the remedial measures to be
implemented with the environment (Delgado, 2007; Morin, 1999; Páramo & Gómez,
1997). Environmental education can be defined as proposed by the Ministry of the
Environment as follows:
Comprehensive and systemic training of Colombian citizens to know, be and act
coherently with sustainable development. When we speak of education, we do
not refer exclusively to schooling or formal education, but to the broad spectrum
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of scenarios where people learn, know and transform themselves. When
educators are mentioned, they include environmental activists, youth leaders,
forest rangers, volunteer park rangers, health promoters, rural and urban
community leaders and organizations, among others (MMADS, 2012, p. 1).
In Colombia, in the 90's, the construction of educational scenarios was initiated, aimed
at the care and proper treatment of the environment, a project with which the Advisory
Commission for Ecological and Environmental Education sought to implement in
educational institutions, subjects that would facilitate social and environmental
empowerment, promoting spaces where students could identify the great variety of
ecosystems in the country, while facilitating the interpretation and recognition of the
constant relationship between the environment and people, among other elements
(Pita-Morales, 2016). In this line of intentions, in 1994 the "Environmental Education
School Project (PRAE)" was regulated (Decree 1743 of August 3, 1994), which is
currently applied in schools, as a didactic tool that brings together comprehensive
training with environmental education in the curricula of formal and informal
education in the country (MAVDT, 2012). The objective of the project was to encourage
the community to participate in the solution of environmental problems of the context,
as well as to train critical and participative people in the construction of an
environmental culture (Pita-Morales, 2016). Currently, the positive impacts of the
PRAE are not very visible, and although many people and institutions consider the
program to have little ecological impact, the proposal constitutes an important
measure to improve the ecosystem relationship from early childhood (Polo, 2018). In
broad terms, environmental education is key to perceive the existing relationships
between natural and social systems, as well as to achieve a broader and clearer
knowledge about the importance of sociocultural factors in the origin and trajectories
of environmental problems.
Similarly, the project seeks to promote people's awareness of the values and actions
that favor positive collaboration among the population, and thus strengthen the
process of environmental remediation and decision-making in this field. In this sense,
"environmental education thus understood can and should be a strategic factor that
influences the established development model, in order to reorient it towards
sustainability and equity" (Martínez, 2010, p. 1). With all of the above, the
environmental problem requires urgent measures that imply the development of an
environmental conscience coupled with a political conscience that implements
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educational, industrial, scientific, technological and economic adjustment measures,
and at the same time understands the relationship between individual, society and
species raised by Morin (1999), as a basis for the development of an increasingly
ecological thinking, that weaves together the ecological as a categorical imperative of
biotic survival of the various species that share the planet.
Materials and methods
Design: this is a quantitative-correlational, cross-sectional, empirical-analytical
research.
Population: the target population was 328 students, 159 males and 169 females
between 12 and 18 years of age who attend classes and are enrolled in the 8th, 9th,
10th, and 11th grades of an urban educational institution. The sampling was non-
random, purposive and the sample was representative.
Instruments: a socio-demographic characterization form was applied and the scale of
environmental attitudes towards specific problems by Moreno and Corraliza (2005),
which is a Likert-type scale composed of response types: not at all, somewhat, quite a
lot, a lot, totally, consisting of 50 statements that are internally subdivided into 16
subscales, of which the following scales were taken for the study: indicators of
individual concern and the scale of personal criteria, both part of the dimensions to
evaluate the pro-environmental attitude. Procedure: Design of the research and
request and approval of the bioethics committee; Signing of the informed consent,
application of instruments; Systematization and analysis of data through the statistical
software for social sciences SPSS ver. 20.0; Construction of results and research
report; Return of results to the institutions.
Results
The characterization data reveal that 14 years of age prevails (23.8%) followed by 15
years (21.3%), 13 years (21.0%); of them 48.5% are male and 51.5% are female; 100%
live in urban areas. The students belong to 8th grade (22.9%), 9th grade (33.8%), 10th
grade (10.1%), 11th grade (33.2%). The common type of housing is house in the city
(82.3%), as well as stratum 3 (54%), 2 (31.7%) and 1 (10.4%). 62.2% live in a nuclear
family, and 30.8% in an extended family. Eighty-six percent consider themselves to be
environmentally friendly and to know "enough" about ecology (52.7%), while 40.5%
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say they know little about ecology. 97.6% indicate that the educational institution
teaches them guidelines for caring for the environment.
The internal consistency of the instrument or Cronbach's alpha of the "Scale of
environmental attitudes towards specific problems" Moreno, Corraliza and Ruíz
(2005) was 0.724 corresponding to a good reliability. In relation to knowledge about
ecology, the following prevailed with an intensity of quite a lot: pollution (46%),
transport (39.6%), waste (50%), chemicals (56.4%), noise (39.6%), energy (42.2%),
water (52.7%), recycling (58.8%), spaces (46.6%) and biodiversity (53.7%). With
respect to individual concern about the environment, it was found that the criterion
prevails a lot (45.7%), quite a lot (43.3%), while the value of somewhat was 6.1% and
that of many times was 4.6%. Similarly, the criterion regarding the environment was
quite a lot (60.4%), very much (25.0%) and somewhat (13.4%) (see Table 1).
Table 1. Ecological knowledge, individual concern and criteria
Ecological Knowledge
Quite
Contamination
46 %
Transportation
39,6 %
Garbage
50 %
Chemicals
56,4 %
Noise
40 %
Energy
42,2 %
Water
53 %
Recycling
58,8 %
Spaces
47 %
Individual Concern
43,3 %
Criteria
60 %
Likewise, according to Pearson's correlation between individual concern and personal
criteria regarding the environment (Table 2), a "moderate" directly proportional
correlation was found between both (p= 0.566). In relation to individual concern and
knowledge about ecology, "moderate" directly proportional correlations were found
between individual concern and pollution (p= 0.481), waste (p=0.541), energy
(p=0.525), recycling (p=0.410), spaces (p=0.657, high correlation), biodiversity (p=
0.516). Similarly, the personal criterion regarding the environment had "moderate"
correlations with waste (p=0.504), energy (p=0.579), recycling (p= 0.429), spaces
(p=0.542) and biodiversity (p=0.579). It is worth mentioning that low correlations
were found between individual concern with transportation (p= 0.176) and personal
criteria (p=0.224).
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Table 2. Correlations between personal criteria, individual concern and ecological
knowledge.
Individual
Concern
Criteria
Contamination
Garbage
Chemicals
Individual
Concern
1
,566**
,481**
,541**
,446**
Criteria
,566**
1
,343**
,504**
,332**
Noise
Energy
Water
Spaces
Biodiversity
Individual
Concern
,375**
,525**
,274**
,657**
,516**
Criteria
,384**
,579**
,392**
,542**
,579**
In the crosstabs of variables, it was found that the criterion is related to the
environment and gender, in "quite a lot" in males (28.4%) and females (32%), while
individual concern in males in "quite a lot" was 22.6%, and in females 25% in "a lot".
Individual concern in relation to grade level scored "quite a lot" in ninth grade (17.4%),
"a lot" in eighth grade (10.4%), tenth grade (4.9%) and eleventh grade (18.3%).
Individual concern was 40.2% in relation to the question "do you consider yourself a
person who cares for the environment" (Table 3).
Table 3. Cross-tabulation of variables with gender, grade and perception of ecology.
Genre
Grade level
Additional questions
Items
Male
Female
8°
9°
10°
11°
Do you take
care of the
environment?
Do you
know
about
ecology?
Does the
school teach
environmental
care
guidelines?
Individual
Concern
Quite a
lot
22,60%
-
-
17,40%
-
-
-
-
-
Individual
Concern
Much
10,40%
-
4,90%
18,30%
40,20%
24,70%
45,10%
Personal
Criteria
Fairly
28,40%
-
13,10%
20,70%
-
21%
50,90%
28,90%
58,50%
Personal
Criteria A
lot
32%
-
-
-
15,90%
-
-
-
-
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Discussion
The research found that when it comes to individual concern, adolescents directly
recognize the impact on spaces, their relationship with waste and energy, which is
consistent with the studies by Berenguer and Corraliza (2000), Herrera, Acuña,
Ramírez, and De la Hoz Alvarez (2016) and Martínez et al., (2008). Similar case,
happens with the personal criterion, which is higher when seeking to recognize the
effects of energy, spaces and litter, results that agree with the studies conducted by
Aragonés and Amérigo (1991) and Camacho and Jaimes (2016). Individual concern
and personal judgment were found to coincide with moderate values of biodiversity
knowledge, analogous to the findings of Barazarte, Neaman, and Vallejo (2013),
Durán, Alzate, López, and Sabucedo (2007), and Herrera et al., (2016). Studies show
that in cities or urban spaces, both the media and the communities and families, tend
to identify more easily, the ecological impacts in their adjacent daily spaces, but given
the habituation to the landscape that pollution, garbage, noise or visual saturation
produce, and due to the regularity of the polluting elements, they may not notice other
problems related to pollution (Álvarez & Vega, 2009; Andrade, 2015, 2017b; Sandoval,
2012; Trelles, 2006; Zimmermann, 2006).
This coincidence reveals from the study that many serious impacts on animal and
human ecosystems can be overlooked, and although concern about energy and contact
with various forms of energy production is greater in cities, personal criteria, that is,
the impulse that shapes the ecological task, is affected by the lack of information, as
well as by a low perception of the risk of pollution, even when there is the idea that
knowledge about ecology is ample. From the above, it is possible to consider an evident
triadic contradiction, present between: what is claimed to know about the
environment; what is actually known about the subject; and what is done as practices
of attenuation, prevention and reduction of negative impacts on ecosystems. This
contradiction could be associated with shortcomings in the educational processes,
particularly with regard to the PRAE, which, in spite of including pedagogical elements
on ecology in the subjects taught in the curriculum, have not been able to motivate the
educational communities to move to action, that is, to the dialogical and practical
meeting between individual concern and personal criteria. The above brings to the
scene the need to analyze them critically in terms of effectiveness, impact and
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contextual applications to educational, community, social and global scenarios
(Burgos, 2017; Obando, 2011; Porras et al., 2008; Torres, 2011; Velásquez & Leal,
2012).
Therefore, it is difficult for adolescents to understand the negative ecological impacts,
beyond their immediate perception, which results in a lack of solidarity with the
environment, as well as resistance to thinking about the medium and long term
consequences. This is evident in different studies, which identify the educational
stagnation regarding the environmental issue, in the lack of ecological knowledge in
context in students, and in the difficulties of cooperation between communities to
mitigate and prevent negative ecological impacts (Martínez et al., 2008; Obando, 2011;
Pita-Morales, 2016; Porras et al., 2008). Likewise, this can generate biased ideas about
remediation from an individual dimension, which is associated more with personal
concern than with collectively elaborated criteria. Ergo, there are difficulties for the
generation of a robust ecological awareness, which transits from the identification of
the problem to the construction and application of reparative environmental
measures, by all social actors co-responsible for such impacts. The research found that,
between individual concern and personal criteria, there are certain important
elements for the development of environmental awareness, such as: knowledge about
Waste, Energy, Recycling, Spaces and Biodiversity, however, there are also three
necessary elements that are little taken into account, or scarcely developed, which are:
transportation, water and noise.
This is somewhat contradictory, since all "urban and rural" communities are called
upon to identify these impacts in a timely manner, and even more so when contact
with noise and transportation are so direct in the urban area; perhaps this does not
happen because of the high level of integration of pollution in the urban landscape, as
well as the scarce political-social-collective participation in the processes of
environmental care. In all cases, the central issue gravitates around the understanding
that the management of environmental pollution should be installed in the framework
of collective responsibility, and this includes the action of all social institutions, while
the timely identification of the impacts of such pollution on the quality and perspective
of life of human communities and other biotic systems (De la Caridad, 2013; Estrada,
Gallo, & Nuñez, 2016; Valencia & Suaréz, 2010). Of course, it is worth considering that
the scarce sensitivity is also associated with an inappropriate anchoring of
environmental repair, which can be collectively built as an anthropo-ethical-political
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criterion, where elements of responsibility, care and repair are dialogically combined,
integrated to a mental ecology -ecologized consciousness- of the global as repair,
acquisition and transmission of legacies of care, hospitality and planetary solidarity.
Both individual concern and personal criteria are key for the transition to ecological
action and, therefore, in the development of an ecological environmental awareness,
which understands ecology from the multidimensionality of both the phenomenon
and the collective reparatory actions necessary for the positive impacts to be greater
than the negative ones, and the criteria of self-sustainability and environmental care
to influence students in early forms of ecological action and reparation. In this regard,
Edgar Morin (1996, 1999) points out that ecological thinking is a thinking that acts
and mobilizes knowledge for the benefit of humanity and the common good, which
means that ecological consciousness is at the same time an anthropoetic
consciousness. Hence, families, communities and educational institutions have the
historical, cultural and bioethical obligation to strengthen, protect and improve
environmental education, while providing scenarios, tools, strategies and knowledge
to redefine what is understood by pollution, environment, ecology, ecological
awareness, cooperation and environmental self-sustainability, which can collectively
amplify the measures implemented to repair the damage to ecosystems.
Conclusions
The ecological knowledge prevalent in order of importance in the population
investigated were: recycling, knowledge about chemicals and transportation, as well
as water, spaces, pollution and energy. Personal criteria regarding the environment is
greater than individual concern, which may be due to the fact that individual concern
is formed from the actions that the subjects can implement regarding a problem, on
which they take specific actions and measures, and as this happens very little, the
personal criteria inscribes them in knowing, but very little in doing.
Both individual concern and personal criteria coincide in that the knowledge most
strengthened by adolescents in school are: waste, energy, recycling, spaces and
biodiversity, with space being the most important in terms of individual concern, while
in the personal criteria, biodiversity is the most important. With respect to the
knowledge that is not strengthened given the scarce knowledge they have about them,
it was found that these are: transportation, water and noise.
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It is striking that an element such as water, which has a strong implication in
environmental awareness, presents low correlations. In this aspect, it is important to
consider elements of information that are strengthened by a low perception of the
decrease or contamination of water in the scenarios that adolescents inhabit.
Correlatively, waste, energy and biodiversity, being themes strongly supported by the
media and some ecological projects, are very much anchored to the ideas and
knowledge of adolescents.
There are no significant differences by gender in terms of personal criteria and
individual concern. However, individual concern is greater in the ninth and eleventh
grades, where adolescence is in formation, and in the eleventh grade, where
adolescence is closing its cycle to enter youth. Both moments are crucial for the
formation of personal character, and with it the solidity of a green environmental
awareness. This means that ecological knowledge and practices should be
strengthened at all stages of development, but it is at the beginning and end of
adolescence where they are strengthened to a greater degree.
Finally, it is observed that there is a perception that the educational institution
strengthens environmental awareness through educational guidelines to care for the
environment, however, they do not point out the implication of this knowledge in the
classes received, nor is the transition to ecological praxis visible; these elements
require further investigation in future research. Environmental education and social
and family reinforcement with respect to environmentalized behaviors constitute the
basis for forming personal criteria and individual concern, which is why it is
imperative to work on better ways of educating in an environmentalized manner.
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