Studying social-environmental issues: an emergency and a challenge for education

Abstract

The project of this article is to expose some of the main characteristics of the study of socio-environmental problems (SEP) and to consider the necessary transformations of our teaching in the disciplines of citizenship, geography and history. First, the author dissects a press article dealing with organic tomato cultivation in Andalusia. This exam is a way to identify the main materials and the main components present in a text that deals with an SEP. Some of these materials and components are called to be defined as learning intentions. Thirdly, it intersects both with new social demands and the requirements of a SEPstudy that is up to the challenges posed by the future of the Planet and Humanity. This opens up a shift in our conceptions of academic knowledge and the disciplines that organize its transmission and the search for new teaching devices. This shift gives way to the explicit consideration of the representations that students have of the world and the role of experience in the construction of knowledge. Between these two developments, there are some critical observations of some of our beliefs and conceptions of the future: the progress, the nature/society dichotomy and individualism.