The consequence of the climate crisis has highlighted the need for knowledge to preserve our environment for the world to be sustainable. Education is a key element in promoting actions for the environment and sustainability. In fact, Environmental Education is an interdisciplinary pedagogical field whose main function is to become aware of social, natural and environmental complexity. As well as the acquisition of knowledge, values and skills that allow people to take active action in the prevention and resolution of current environmental problems. A key point of environmental education is that it highlights the relationship between the natural environment and the social model. It is therefore more of an educational process that provides the basis for creating a lifestyle in which future generations are more sensitive to the environment in order to improve the relationship between humanity and the environment in which they live.

UNESCO stresses that environmental education is a lifelong process and should be developed as an action in the educational programs of the centers. Classroom teaching should be adapted to the age and maturity of boys and girls, and their learning, besides being theoretical, should be practical, enjoyable and fun. Many of these activities can be carried out in farms schools, in any park in the municipality or in the courtyard of the center. In fact, better plants, shrubs, rivers, birds or insects are known. Environmental awareness can also be improved. For example, pollution from factories or transport, gas emissions or energy consumption, treatment of water in treatment plants, recycling in landfills, etc.

In the Basque Country there are programmes promoting environmental education as the educational programme for the sustainability and quality of the Agenda 21 educational centre in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country. It is based on community participation and intervenes and collaborates in the sustainable development of the municipality. As an environmental education program, it aims to develop knowledge, skills, attitudes, motivation and commitment to participate in the resolution of environmental problems. However, there are some shortcomings, such as the lack of public awareness of the influence of certain forms of frantic consumption on health, the ecosystem and social life. For example, knowing how current consumerism threatens the planet. In fact, educational curricula do not fully reflect the concept of our economic system and the environmental and ecological footprint derived from the consumption organization model. Therefore, it is necessary to develop an environmental education that fosters critical thinking to understand and modify the causes of the natural and social problems existing in society.

In short, environmental education in the increasingly urgent global fight against climate change is a suitable field for promoting ecological awareness and environmental preservation. Acquiring knowledge associated with this phenomenon helps young people to understand and avoid the consequences of climate change arising from the current social model. However, to make environmental education effective, it is necessary to develop a profound history of the socio-political and economic processes that have caused the deterioration of the environment and natural resources and to promote actions that modify human consumption habits.

Aritza Urrengoetxea Cordovilla, Professor