The Role of the Geotouristic Guide in Earth Science Education: Towards a More Critical Society of Land Management

Abstract

Primary and secondary education in Spain does not satisfactorily cover the geoscientific concepts, which explains the great difficulty of citizens to understand the dynamics of their own planet, and does not contribute to a more interventionist and critical citizenship facing land projects. Scientific community is worried about the reduction in this discipline, and a need for a new approach—which should give more weight to field trips—is being manifested. In this context, geoparks would take an active role, due to the fact that they have an important function in organizing educational outdoors activities at all levels. Nevertheless, there is a lack of research focused on the role of geoparks as tools that promote educational opportunities for visitors and students. On the one hand, this article aims to provide a study of the effectiveness of the interpretative provision offered by the geotouristic guide of the Geologic Park of Aliaga to youngsters aged 12 to 17 years, and also the evaluation of this guide in their Earth science learning process. On the other hand, we study the knowledge acquisition in an intensive summer course offered to children aged 5 to 10 years. According to the results of the surveys, geodiversity and land management contents explained by the geotouristic guide are retained significantly by students and children, and significant differences were observed in the acquisition of knowledge in Earth sciences. In addition, this article adds a practical approach, and proposes some features that should be present in a geotouristic guide playing an effective role.