Methodological approaches to change consumption habits of future teachers in Barcelona, Spain: reducing their personal Ecological Footprint

Abstract

Online programmes developed by Non-Governmental Organizations to measure personal Ecological Footprint (EF) offer a very useful tool for working with students in the lecture theatre. In and from the University we feel responsible for raising awareness about the interdependence between environmental problems and personal behaviour. Therefore the objective of this study was to provide integral sustainability training for 119 of our alumni from the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya (UIC) in Barcelona (Spain). The students who are future Primary School teachers were trained by participating actively in a multidisciplinary educational research project which led them to change their consumption habits and made them much more aware of sustainability and their responsibility for the environment, via the great challenge of analysing and trying to reduce their EF. The students were divided into two groups A and B, according to the subject specific programme they were enrolled in (in addition to the general programme common to both groups). Although analysis of the results showed that there were changes in the consumption habits of both groups, it was only in Group B that the changes before and after training were statistically significant. This study demonstrates in an indirect way, using EF as an attitudes indicator, that transversal training in sustainability can change the consumption routines of students; this is an exploratory study that helps open a line of investigation for further work in sustainability educational programs.