Initial progress of the SAFER education program about lake conservation and use.

COSTILLA, P.S.; BERTONI, B.; SEITZ, C.; ZAPPERI, P.A.; PICCOLO, M.C.; PERILLO, G.M.E.

Orford

Workshop; GLEON 16; 2014

GLEON

Since one of the main milestones of the SAFER project is to develop a children´s educational program about lake conservation and use, the objective of this article is to present the first achievements of its implementation. La Salada Lake, nearby to Pedro Luro City, Argentina, was the chosen place to start and test the program. As a first stage, basing the structure on an ethnographic fieldwork, nearby schools were identified in order to establish contact with teachers concerned with socio-­‐ environmental approach related with the lake. This allowed a second working instance that involved the participation of a high school teacher whose main interest is in Society Development and Environment. In this framework, an educational and participatory research strategy was established and conducted through a field trip with 16 students. The methodology was planned to strength cognitive skills like: observation, description and explanation of natural processes. The trip consisted on dialoguing with inhabitants of the La Salada neighborhood and following a path around the lake to observe and take records of vegetation and wildlife. As an in situ activity in the lake, physico-­‐chemical parameters were measured by multisensor profiles and water samples were taken to identify the zooplankton and phytoplankton species. Finally, the students, with the professor advice, submitted a research proposal to a regional science fair. Another important achievement is related to the integration of different disciplines applied to understand the lake. From the comments of the students, the activity exceeded their expectations over the fieldwork and they were willing to develop further activities