Modelo de educaciÓn ambiental no formal para la protecciÓn de los humedales bano y los negros

The main purpose of this article is to generate and to validate a non-formal environmental education model for the conservation and protection of the Banõ and Los Negros wetlands, located in the lower Sinú region, between the districts of Cotocá Arriba, Castilleral and Palo de Agua, within the rural areas of the municipality of Lorica, in the Department of Córdoba, Colombia. For this purpose, a series of constitutive elements of the model were defined including the environmental profile of the territory obtained from a diagnosis of the area of study, the factors impinging on negative behavior on the part of the wetlands inhabitants towards those types of ecosystems were defined, besides the definition of a pedagogical basis was drawn from the above mentioned elements. Based on the integration of those elements, the fourth component of the model was identified, this is to say, the approaches under which it would be developed were obtained: Systemic, sustainable, interdisciplinary and community developed. A model was searched from a comprehensive vision in which the community was a fundamental actor in its implementation and contributed to the sustainable development of the wetlands considering interdisciplinarity as an integrating component. The materialization of the model or its validation phase was specified through a non-formal educational pilot program that counted with a benefited population, well defined goals and objectives, as well as the identification of the problems to be intervened, drawn from the diagnosis of the territory. It was established that the contents, methodology and pedagogic tools would depended upon the definition of the above-mentioned components. The PDCA (planning, doing, checking and acting) cycle was proposed as a mechanism for evaluating the model and the pilot program derived from it.