Environmental training in distance postgraduate education in times of COVID-19

Abstract

The current environmental problems, exacerbated globally and locally by climate change and pollution, require Cuban science to project actions from different modalities of improvement to contribute to the environmental culture of society. However, despite the efforts made, there are gaps that must be overcome in environmental training. From this perspective, the Cuban university is in charge of contributing to the fulfillment of the 2030 Agenda and the State Plan to confront climate change. Consistent with this aspiration, the Diploma Course "Territory, Environment, and resilient communities for Sustainable Development" was developed, coordinated by the Center for Community Studies of the University of Las Villas. The objective of the article is to present the results of environmental training achieved in this diploma, through distance education. The methods used were: document analysis, participant observation, interviews and questionnaires. As a result of the training process, the development of environmental training in the trainees was achieved, expressed in: knowledge, skills and values ​​demonstrated in the workshops, through virtual platforms. It provided a diagnosis, a proposal for actions and a monograph, which constitutes reference material for future training processes. In the course, the responsibility of students and teachers in COVID-19 conditions was evidenced, in pursuit of environmental training. In the process, it was possible to appreciate the community self-development of the individual and collective subject before each activity proposed by the faculty, which assumed the accompaniment of the group with pedagogical mastery.