The aim was to encourage critical thinking and think about actions that contribute to the care of our environment.

La Universidad Nacional de Rosario presented certificates corresponding to the Environmental Sustainability Education Program to more than 600 students from different secondary schools in the city. 

This innovative initiative included the participation of students who are in their last year of the curriculum and aims to train, raise awareness, disseminate and promote tools that allow attendees to think and diagram sustainable actions in various areas.

“We believe in the transformative power of public universities, which is why we think it is very important to carry out this type of action and put the environmental issue on the agenda. There is nothing more important than taking care of our common home, because it is what guarantees us the ability to share this life we ​​have and to think about a future life. Without a common home there is nothing else,” explained rector Franco Bartolacci, adding: “That is why we must give relevance to the issue. The question is why, when the images are so dramatic, so powerful, do they not provoke profound transformations. These are consequences of what humanity is doing to the planet.” 

She also stressed that it is important to prioritize environmental care because “unfortunately, every day we also hear voices that belittle the relevance that this issue should have, and that say that what is happening is not a product of climate change or that climate change is an invention.” In this sense, she commented that “the university must be a territory capable of embracing the causes of its time, and there is no more important cause than that of caring for our planet, so we have to be present.” 

In line with this, he highlighted the important role that young people have in this task of generating changes in favour of environmental preservation. “It is often said that young people are the future, but I do not believe that they are the future of anything. I think that when it is said that young people are the future, it is a concession made by the generations that could not or did not know how to do certain things. Young people are the present, and they are protagonists of the transformation process that previous generations could not, because in many aspects we failed. In environmental matters, in particular the voice of young people is raised throughout the world like no other.”

For his part, the head of the UNR Environmental Policy Area, Matías De Bueno, stressed the importance of being able to discuss environmental care with students from the six districts of the city. “We understand that the University should not only work behind closed doors, but that it must transmit knowledge on the one hand and co-create knowledge with the citizens on the other. Therefore, we not only go out to say and tell what we know, but we also go out to receive information, opinions, proposals from each and every one of the students who are with us today.”

The Program was developed by the UNR Environmental Policy Area in coordination with the Environmental Sustainability Area of ​​the University Extension Secretariat of the Faculty of Law, through an agreement with the Educational Assistance Fund (FAE) of the Municipality of Rosario. “When we began to think about this idea with the University, we agreed that there was a plan B, we had no other alternative but to take care of it. The truth is that this is a Program that reaches all the neighborhoods of the city, and I must emphasize that we are committed to ensuring that the number of participants grows year after year. We are proud of the projects that come from the students themselves and how they get involved in this task,” explained the president of the FAE, Rocío Catalán.

During the presentation, first-year students from the Faculty of Law who throughout this year have been in the Environmental Sustainability Education Program since the Workshop on Access to Legal Information were also present. It is worth remembering that it was in this academic unit where the pilot test of what is today this important and transcendental program of the University was carried out for the first time. “Back in 2021, Matías De Bueno approached us with the proposal to incorporate the subject Workshop on Access to Legal Information, with a strong imprint on knowledge about environmental sustainability. We saw that beyond installing a new, academic and comprehensive training proposal in our Faculty, it represented nesting, in an academic space that did not have it, the values ​​that have to sustain the public university. This is a sign of the public university's commitment to current social problems," commented the dean of the Faculty of Law, Hernán Botta, who added: "At a time when some voices have been raised, many of them in an aggressive tone, questioning what the university is for, what its purpose is, or what work is being carried out at the public university, this is a response." 

Daiana Gallo, the Secretary of Territorial Management of the Ministry of Education of the Province of Santa Fe, also participated in the presentation. She valued the need to continue raising awareness, to educate, to train and to be multipliers of practices that care for our planet. “What we seek is that students not only acquire knowledge, are interested in it and can work on sustainability and be able to think of alternatives for how we continue in this world that is so difficult, but also be multipliers, multipliers at home, in every action they do and that this is a collective teaching with families and friends.”

Journalist: Gonzalo J. García/Photographer: Camila Casero.