In recent decades, a growing awareness of the importance of preserving cultural heritage as a means of promoting sustainable development has been accompanied by a similar re-evaluation of the role of heritage education as a key driver of citizen engagement. The development and implementation of heritage education at all levels, particularly in the context of teacher training, is of vital importance. The aim of this study is to analyse student teachers’ understanding of heritage and its potential as an educational tool, in order to identify measures to enhance teacher training and practice with respect to heritage and heritage education. The research design consists of a comparative study of a non-random sample of 149 trainee teachers undertaking Bachelor’s degrees in Early Childhood Education and Primary Education at the University of Córdoba (Spain). The results reveal a mainly cultural conception of heritage among both groups, based on local material elements, and little sense of the link between heritage and present-day life. The students studying early childhood education were found to display a more specific knowledge of heritage in their answers, while the primary education students showed a greater awareness of identity and values as features of cultural heritage.

El artículo presenta un análisis de la dimensión afectiva, como parte de la conciencia ambiental, relativa a valores y creencias favorables al cuidado y respeto del ambiente. El estudio se configuró como un diseño descriptivo y no experimental, en el que se utilizó un cuestionario autoadministrado, con una muestra de 531 participantes, un 20% de la población objeto de estudio (N = 2051), integrada por la totalidad del alumnado de la Facultad de Ciencias de la Educación de la Universidad de Córdoba, España. Se encontró que existe un significativo nivel de conciencia ambiental, en términos de sensibilidad e interés por el estado actual del ambiente, y se confirmó la tendencia a la hipermetropía ambiental. Se concluye que es necesario pensar los problemas globales en su cotidianidad, bajando sus niveles de abstracción y, fundamentalmente, desde el lazo emocional que nos vincula con el ambiente.

The aim of this study is to gauge the environmental attitudes of adolescents in order to improve environmental education plans. To this end, the Attitudes Towards the Environment validated survey was applied to 346 adolescents (51% boys and 49% girls, mean age = 15.05) at secondary schools in Cordoba (Spain). A factor analysis (FA) was carried out using the FACTOR program, obtaining three factors: emotional, cognitive, and behavioral. The results of the FA exhibit excellent internal consistency, with an Omega coefficient of 0.916 and Cronbach’s Alpha of 0.915, and adequate goodness of fit. The emotional factor results are good, as concern and responsibility towards the environment were notable. However, this did not translate into motivation to obtain further knowledge or to become involved in collective civic actions. The findings in this line give us information to review educational objectives and methodologies, for which emotional education is essential. Elements are proposed to encourage adolescents to adopt more proenvironmental attitudes so that the development of environmental awareness and concern in them is not undermined by frustration, and so that peer learning is present through dialogue and cooperative work, promoting an affinity for nature and the motivation to participate in collective civic activities.

People today are becoming increasingly disconnected from nature, and suffering physically and mentally as a result. One solution to this is to undertake the renaturation of human environments, including schools and universities. Faculties of education have an opportunity to serve as an example to their students in this regard, by establishing models of reconnection for new teachers to take into schools subsequently. This project reports on the renaturation of the Faculty of Educational Sciences and Psychology at the University of Cordoba (Spain), where outdoor spaces have been greened and adapted for teaching, biodiversity has been promoted, and students have been trained in the importance of working in contact with nature in order to promote sustainability.

Proponemos en este trabajo un planteamiento interdisciplinar cuya experiencia se está llevando a cabo en la Facultad de Ciencias de la Educación de la Universidad de Córdoba, entre las áreas de Didáctica de las Ciencias Sociales y Experimentales, a través de una metodología activa en el desarrollo de un itinerario didáctico, donde el alumnado es el que lleva a cabo la preparación de las paradas y la exposición de las mismas. Esta propuesta de colaboración entre estas dos áreas fija sus objetivos en la participación integral de cada discente a través de la búsqueda y análisis de información relevante y la cooperación entre grupos. La tarea fomenta capacidades y competencias relacionadas con la transversalidad y la interdisciplinariedad de los contenidos y para su formación en el Grado de Educación Primaria.

The framework of this study is the visual literacy. This text studies the narratives of a group of students of the Bachelor Degree in Primary Education in the University of Cordoba (Spain) who had to analyse a photograph of a street in a Nepalese city. The analysis of the 20 cases shows that the students have a eurocentric point of view and that they extrapolate their own lifestyle to the Nepalese society. As they will become teachers, it is vital to work now on these ideas in order to make them familiar with the empathy and multiculturality.