An art-based socio-educational methodology to strengthen environmental culture in lower secondary education: design and systematization of a school–family–community experience
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Keywords

Environmental education
Arts education
Socio-educational methodology
Environmental culture
School–family–community

How to Cite

1.
Martínez Estrada V, González Pérez E, Rodríguez Ramos DY, Rosabal Rodríguez JA. An art-based socio-educational methodology to strengthen environmental culture in lower secondary education: design and systematization of a school–family–community experience. MF [Internet]. 2025 Dec. 3 [cited 2026 Jun. 1];15(4):25-38. Available from: https://revistas.usam.edu.sv/index.php/masferrer_investiga/article/view/42

Abstract

The deepening environmental crisis calls for educational models that connect schools, families, and communities to foster a critical and sustainable environmental culture from an early age. Within this framework, Arts Education holds an underused potential to link aesthetic experience with the understanding and care of the environment. This article aims to present and substantiate a socio-educational methodology based on Arts Education to strengthen environmental culture in lower secondary students, and to systematize its implementation in a school setting. The proposal is grounded in a documentary analysis of environmental and arts education literature and in the systematization of long-term professional practice in teacher education and school– family–community collaboration. The methodology is organized into four interrelated phases (diagnosis, planning, implementation, and evaluation–systematization) and integrates activities such as the problematization of everyday life, guided observation of the local environment, aesthetic appreciation and creative workshops, and the contest “My Décima for the Environment”. The experience made it possible to identify initial gaps in students’ and community agents’ environmental knowledge and awareness, as well as qualitative transformations in their ways of perceiving and acting toward the environment, together with a strengthening of school–family–community relationships. The study concludes that the proposed methodology provides a systemic, guiding, flexible, and context-sensitive framework for embedding environmental education within Arts Education and offers a situated model that can potentially be adapted to other school contexts.

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Copyright (c) 2026 Vicente Martínez Estrada, Ermis González Pérez, Damaris Yamilka Rodríguez Ramos, José Alberto Rosabal Rodríguez (Autor/a)