La educación ambiental en las Instituciones de educación superior del Estado Bolívar, Venezuela

the use of environmental education as a means of encouraging thought and discussion in the classroom may be seen as a tool that would allow us to establish strong ties between facilitators and promoters of this aspect of education with a view to constructing a pedagogical discourse that would have an impact on society as a whole with a view to transforming the prevalent anthropocentric and consumerist attitude towards the earth？s resources to one driven by the development of local potential within an integral, systematic framework. thus, environmental education seeks to re-establish those ties that would allow humanity to rediscover its relationship with nature through participation in and systemization of collective experiences. from this viewpoint this descriptive, explorative study was developed with the aim of identifying the pedagogical approaches to environmental education taken in the different higher education institutions (hei) in bolivar state, venezuela. the methodological approach used was that of participative diagnosis and it was found that environmental education only figured in 37 per cent of all the degree courses offered by hei in bolivar state. of these, the main approach taken tended to rely on theoretical classes. the programs were designed under different criteria which makes it difficult to standardize their structure and, in consequence, their scope from the environmental education point of view. on the whole, teaching centered on theoretical activities in the classroom and assessment mainly consisted of testing content knowledge.