Abstract:

Environmental education has been defined as the process of recognizing values and clarifying concepts in order to develop skills and attitudes necessary to understand and appreciate the relations among men, their culture and their biophysical surroundings. Environmental Education also entails practice in decision-making and self-formulation of a code of behavior about issues concerning environmental quality.
Environmental education is regarded today as a key instrument to address current socio-environmental issues, understanding that the quality of present and future life goes through finding ways and lifestyles which deeply respect the environment and promote sustainable models of consumption and production of resources and energy. Achieving these goals requires not only political and legislative action and support to minimize harmful effects and ensure sustainability, but also public awareness and responsibility. In this line Education plays a crucial role to develop personal and collective awareness of the impact of personal and collective habits and behaviors on the quality of life and the future of the planet. The term ecosystem is a key and broad concept linked to conceptual model, which can be used to explain dynamic relationships between living beings and their physical environment, involving a flow of matter and energy. It therefore embeds bridging concepts and knowledge from different disciplines offering a rich and powerful framework to understand many environmental issues. Among ecosystems, agroecosystems are a specific type of ecosystems which are modified and controlled by man and respond in a very sensitive and intensely way to the human activity and to changes in natural conditions. In order to support environmental education we are particularly interested in pedagogical issues concerning how to enhance learning and the acquisition of skills and attitudes. Inquiry based learning has been shown as a useful method to increase students’ motivation, facilitate conceptual understanding and promote the development of competences at school.
Considering the previous ideas, the main objective of this work is to analyze and discuss the pedagogical potential of agro-ecosystem to promote contextualized learning in environmental education, as well as to review previous experiences in the specialized literature, in order to look for inquiry based learning patterns. Implications for the improvement of environmental education will be also discussed.

Keywords:

Environmental education, agroecosystems, inquiry based learning, ecosystems.