Environmental Education As A Strategy That Promotes The Conservation Of Trachemys Callirostris (Turtle) In Students Of The Santiago Apostle Educational Institution, Sucre, Colombia

Abstract

Trachemys callirostris (Turtle), is a species that during the last decades has been submitted to a high extraction activity in all the regions where it is distributed at national level. This strong pressure has resulted in a marked decrease in the size of their populations. The present work had as purpose to foment in the students of eleventh grade of the Educational Institution Santiago Apostle from the environmental education positive attitudes that promote the conservation of the species in this community. In order to achieve the proposed objective, seven environmental education workshops were held for 57 students between the ages of 15 and 19. The activities were developed in three phases or stages: 1) design and validation of an instrument to evaluate the level of knowledge, perceptions and actions to conserve the turtle in the region. In the second phase, the instrument was applied to the student population and the thematic lines of the didactic booklet used in the intervention process during the third phase were defined. It is observed that the students have good knowledge about the living conditions of the turtle and the forms of conservation; however, they have some inaccuracies in reproductive aspects and morphological differentiation between males and females. In addition, they have misperceptions about the biological importance of the species, which is why it is important to develop environmental education activities not only with students, but also with members of the community in general and to evaluate their effectiveness.