Chair of Earth “Dr. Gonzalo Cruz Calderón” an educative program of environmental awareness and University Extension

Abstract

The Chair of Earth, “Dr. Gonzalo Cruz Calderón”, of the Department of Natural Sciences of the Francisco Morazán National Pedagogical University (UPNFM, for its acronyms in Spanish), is an institutional educational strategy that includes a wide range of dissemination of scientific knowledge and the carrying out of practical actions (researches, field work, online campaigns, seminars, conferences, laboratory work, collection of geological samples, etc.), to strengthen a proactive awareness towards the balance of planet earth through the planning and execution of these activities in the different university academic programs (undergraduate and special programs).

 The educational program seeks to improve environmental conditions and sustainable development in all the campuses in the country, introducing and working with a variety of appropriate methodologies for this purpose, in the context of the university educational system (face-toface methodologies, distance and virtual). The program is based on the principle and university slogan of “Educate to transform”, conceiving and proposing through education, the most efficient and enduring intervention towards the achievement and consolidation of an awareness that ensures sustainability and balance of the planet eart.

  In this sense, through this educational program, between the seventh or eighth week of each university academic period since 2012, a series of activities are planned and generated to manage the environmental awareness process, which in turn are shaped and executed by students, teaching staff and administrative staff of the natural sciences area of the university, but as an extension and social bonding of the Department to the rest of the university community, the students of all the different faculties, majors and Headquarters where the UPNFM works. Likewise, some experiences obtained in the development and growth of this important educational program are described