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INTRODUCTION
Comprehensive understanding of the environment is possible if it is started from the interpretation and contradictions of natural processes that have taken place in the development of human society. At present, it is not possible to speak of environmental problems without considering the conflicts and damages caused by the modes or production systems that are directed to business development models followed up to the present which are based on the interaction of men in the labor context with impact on nature.
Taking these statements into account, the Santiago de Cuba Hydro Energy Company develops the hydro-energy process to provide electric energy service to rural communities located in areas with difficult access. To improve the availability of the hydro energetic process, reduce environmental impacts and save and take advantage of natural resources, it is essential to develop not only technologies, but also knowledge in the training of professionals, in order to incorporate a responsible environmental culture and contribute to the achievement of sustainable development. Knowledge is necessary for the application of various actions to know the factors of anthropogenic pressure and the environmental situation (Michel et al., 2019).
These approaches allow analyzing that in order to achieve environmental training in an educational process, environmental knowledge must be developed to achieve responsible attitudes and behavior towards the environment.
To contribute to the development of an environmental quality, it is necessary to generate a new way of seeing the environment and educating people in the conceptual and attitudinal (Pérez et al., 2019).
By these affirmations the processes of environmental training are developed with an intention to promote values, abilities and capacities in man to achieve a balance with the environment. Achieving a balance in the society-environment interrelation, allows man as a conscious being, to direct actions in accordance with moral principles to conserve the environment and take advantage of its resources in a sustainable way (Guzman and Pérez, 2019).
Environmental training must provide tools that allow knowledge and concepts to be used in achieving professional transformation. Environmental training and education allows tightening links between environment and man and reflecting on the need to move towards a new educational perspective that influences sustainable development (Orgaz, 2018).
Environmental education should be an activator of environmental awareness, aimed at promoting the active participation of education in the conservation, use and improvement of the environment (Bosque et al., 2018).
In Cuba, the training of the hydraulic engineer is based on the unity of theory and practice, taking into account the professional's experience based on the scientific, technical and pedagogical development of the professional, and is based on the historical-cultural approach, from which they get professional problems (Gutierrez et al., 2019).
For these reasons, the need to train professionals in hydro-energy professional practice is a priority for Hydro-energy, to achieve solutions to different environmental problems. Due to the importance of this process for hydro-energy development, a diagnosis was made of Hydro-energy professionals, which evidenced manifestations in environmental treatment in professional work practice, which affects performance in hydro-energy professional practice. For these affirmations and to contribute to reduce the insufficiencies in the environmental treatment of practicing professionals, the objective of this work is to develop actions to raise the environmental culture of professionals in the practice of professional exercise.
METHODS
The investigation was carried out in the Santiago de Cuba Hydro-energy Base Business Unit (Hidroenergia), which provides electricity to inhabitants in isolated areas of difficult access in Santiago de Cuba and to the National Electro-Energy System.
In the investigation, a diagnosis was made and the Census Technique was used (Torres, 2002), with non-probabilistic sample or directed sample, a controlled choice of study subjects with certain characteristics. Seventy-eight hydro-energy professionals were enrolled. Census: 78 professionals. Experimental design: a pre-experiment was applied, a design that is applied to the selected group or sample, a test prior to the experimental treatment (Diagnosis), the treatment is subsequently administered and finally a post-treatment test is applied. Thus, there is an initial reference (Pre-test-Diagnosis) to know the level of the group and a final reference (Post-test) after applying the stimulus or treatment to the variables. This design can be diagrammed according to Hernandez (2004) as follows:
where:
G- |
Group for pre-test and post-test; |
01- |
Dependent variable for the previous test (Pre-test); |
02- |
Dependent variable for the subsequent test (Post-test); |
X- |
Stimulus or treatment of the variables. |
Exploratory survey: To explore the level of environmental knowledge of professionals before and after treatment. Structured interview: To explore the level of knowledge in environmental training of specialists responsible for hydro-energy groups and complexes.
Statistical analysis: Source: SPSS Software version 21.0.
Non-parametric analysis of related samples: To determine the differences and make the comparison of the variables of the pre-test and the post-test.
T-Test analysis for related samples: To know the behavior of the estimated variables of the pre-test and the post-test in the sample studied in the investigation.
In the diagnosis (Pre-test) of the pre-experiment to know the level of environmental knowledge as an initial reference in the professionals of Hydro-energy, insufficiencies in the environmental treatment in the practice of professional work were evident, which affect performance in the exercise hydro-energy professional.
In order to reduce the insufficiencies in the environmental treatment of professionals in the practice of professional exercise and to achieve transcendental changes in environmental culture, an action plan was implemented based on the environmental reality of professionals.
The action plan was applied to the entire environmental training process by systematizing in the practice of the professional work of environmental culture to achieve environmental training. In the stages, specific objectives and actions were present, which constituted the essence of transformative action in professionals. The action plan was developed with the implementation of the following stages:
First Stage: Mobilization in environmental training.
Second Stage: Socialization and involvement in environmental training.
Third Stage: Developing in environmental training.
The formation of an environmental culture committed to the performance of professionals must be in correspondence with the environmental demands in their actions and performance in the hydro-energy context.
Development of the Stages in the Implementation of Actions for the Environmental Training of Professionals
I. First Stage: Mobilization in Environmental Training
In this stage, the training referents that professionals have on the environment, which have preceded in their social and university environment, were diagnosed and mobilized to energize and direct them from the cognitive and affective to environmental contents with the intention of an environmentalist training in Hydro-energy.
Specific objective: To diagnose the environmental problems that are identified in professional performance and to mobilize the environmental contents to a process of formation of the environmental hydro-energy culture.
1.1 Approach and Awareness
This first moment was to encourage professionals to approach the knowledge of environmental aspects, to raise sensitization for awareness and recognition of environmental problems, their identification in their area of action through diagnosis and understanding and repercussion of their risks and other environmental aspects that were identifiable. In this way, it was aimed at learning the significant environmental aspects, learning to know and achieve an approach to environmental reality in their professional performance.
Actions
Interactive environmental meetings. Their aim was to promote an aesthetic vision of the environment and a favorable ethical space, through awareness and deep reflection on the characterization of the environment where the professionals work, to achieve an approach and familiarization of identifiable environmental aspects and awareness in their training.
1.2 Mobilization and Motivation
In a second moment, the environmental contents acquired in the approach and awareness step were mobilized and, from their own culture, they were encouraged to the identification of environmental risks in their socio-professional environment. This promoted the contradiction between what has been learned and what needs to be learned, in search of harmony with the environment, all under affective conditions and motivation towards environmental problems. The related allowed the movement of the environmental contents for the apprehension of the elements of the environmental reality with the problems identified in the profile of the professional and the availability for their solutions. In this way, the professional began to understand the phenomena generated about environmental problems in the field of their profession.
Actions
Environmental Conferences. In the conferences, professionals were be informed about the environmental problems that produce environmental risks and impacts of greater incidence in the different areas of hydroenergy process and their repercussion on the conservation of soils, surface waters, groundwater and flora and fauna in rural communities where hydro-energy service is provided.
Environmentalist Seminars. Seminars were given by the departments or work groups where topics related to environmental risks and impacts that can affect and be identified in each professional context of work were related. In the seminars, content related to the method of calculating the polluting load contributed to the environment, the environmentally rational management of hazardous wastes and the analysis of the water used in hydro-energy processes in rural communities were studied in depth.
Projection of Educational Videos. The professionals internalized and learned to recognize environmental problems and allowed the exchange of ideas, thoughts, visions, and contrasts that generate a climate of harmony between the participants and their awareness of the environment. Films of Cleaner Productions (PML), global warming and the incidences of professional technological activities, technological development and their influence on climate change and biological diversity in rural communities were presented.
Technical Visits to Hydro-energy Complexes. This activity provided an opportunity to integrate theoretical knowledge with practical knowledge in hydroelectric plants and an understanding of the link of natural and technological processes. The professional must develop a vision for the protection of species from vegetation and fauna and the conservation of the community's soils, to be in correspondence with the hydro energetic process carried out in hydroelectric plants. The environmental projection was evidenced in the community scenario for the conservation of waters for human and agricultural consumption. In the practices of the hydro energetic process, analyzes were carried out in the exchanges, conversations, opinions, which allowed the understanding of the environmental aspects that intervene in the use of water as a source of electrical energy and the need to carry out the physical-chemical analyzes of this resource. In the hydro energetic process, the control of wastes, hazardous pollutants of the environment and other aspects related to the professional environmental context. In the community, the opportunity was presented to achieve direct contact with the environment and its inhabitants, to understand natural processes, agricultural development and the need to preserve and make the most of all natural resources.
II. Socialization and Involvement Stage in Environmental Training
It is the stage that formed the most solid and finished ideas of the professionals about the environment, in order to be able to emit criteria, creative ideas towards solutions, comparison and emission of judgments in professional practice. The environmental contents were related to the experiences and learning acquired in the previous stage and other contents that preceded the environmental culture, to concretize them in the environmental reality of the hydro-energy process.
Specific objective: To achieve an attitude of change through the involvement of Hydro-energy professionals in the formation of the environmental hydro-energy culture.
2.1 Involvement and Participation
In a first moment of this stage, direct action of professionals was fostered stimulating creativity, interaction in the construction of a change where high communication and dialogue prevailed, through the empowerment of spaces as means to develop their points of view on the environmental concept and the search for solutions of environmental problems management.
Actions
Environmental Scientific Activities. Actions were organized where the professionals participated in workshops, conferences, Science and Technology Forum, round tables to present their criteria, proposals and reflect the development in environmental issues.
Environmental Projection with External Factors. It allowed the link of Hydro-energy processes with institutions that are involved in the implementation of the Environmental Management System and the environmental training process. They were identified as institutions with high performance, which favored the exchange of experiences and environmental knowledge of hydroenergy professionals.
Community Environmental Projection. This activity focused its link with the rural communities that receive the hydroelectric power service, where conversations and communication with their inhabitants collected new experiences on environmental problems. Social awareness about the environmental protection established a scenario to design actions toward the preservation of the environment and other related achievements in mountain conditions.
Formation of an Environmental Committee. According to the knowledge and experiences acquired, the professionals developed an involvement process, where they selected a group of the most talented specialists to form an Environmental Committee in the entity, which allowed the exchange, reflection and analysis of environmental problems. The creation of this group allowed monitoring the dynamics of the environmental training of professionals in the organization.
2.2 Confrontation and Comparison
The second moment of the development of the stage was characterized by the promotion of spaces for the exchange of environmental knowledge that originated debates at group and individual level. The criteria of the professionals in a learning process of environmental contents were taken into account through debates and positions based on arguments that are applied in the professional exercise, which involved the confrontation to overcome social-environmental problems.
Actions
Assessment Workshops. In the workshops, topics based on operational instructions and procedures were presented, which provided controversy for professionals, with the exchange where their points of view were exposed for reflection on solutions to environmental problems identified in their work context. Topics were studied to establish the bases for environmental control and treatment in Hydro-energy procedures, environmental planning, updating and access to legal requirements, physical-chemical and bacteriological parameters of water, their permissible limits for human consumption and its usage as an energy source for the hydroenergetic process.
Video Debate. The projection of videos inserted the professionals into the comparison and debate with the environmental reality, with the environmental problems in Cuba, Latin America and in the world and the knowledge of incidences of the hydro-energy process on the environment. Short films about professionals’ performance in hydroelectric plants in Latin American countries and other videos edited by Cuban television reporters were shown.
2.3 Elaboration and Change
A third moment of the stage was carried out on the basis of previous learning, which allowed the professionals to enrich their own universe from these learned arguments and propitiated they were creating their own thoughts regarding the environment. A climate of self-confidence and compromise with care for the environment in their job performance was created and assumed a change that allowed an evolution of creativity and skills.
Actions
Conferences of Ethical-Axiological Spaces. The themes presented in these activities opened spaces for the discussion of axiological aspects to constitute an ethical-environmental awareness for the professional activity, for their best performance, respect for the environment and understanding of the regulations in force in national environmental legislation. Topics on environmental education and environmental ethics, environmental responsibility in hydro-energy processes and their impact on agroecological processes in rural communities were discussed.
Reflection and Awareness Readings. This activity was presented so that the professional reflects and takes attitudes to become aware of environmental problems in their socio-professional environment through readings of environmental content. Readings and analyzes were conducted on environmental education, training and awareness of the processes that govern rural communities, identifiable risks in environmental performance, actions to rationally reduce the consumption of water, energy, pollutant load and environmental impacts that affect communities that provide hydro energy services.
III Environmentalist Training Developing Stage
It was the most complex stage that allowed the appropriation of the deepest environmental contents and opened up a superior behavior and attitude in professionals in decision-making on specific environmental situations, where the deepening for transformation should be evident, through its development in professional practice, for the search for answers and alternatives to the identifiable environmental risks and impacts in the organization. The hydro-energetic professional should assume logical and independent thinking with reflective and critical positions that promote a higher stage in their environmental training, as a need to learn and do. At this stage, it was searched for the commitment to the realities of the environment where the professionals work, through the appropriation of an environmental conscience. Specific objective: To promote the development of knowledge and skills, allowing a transformation in professionals towards responsibility for environmental problems and a reflective capacity for decision-making.
3.1 Appropriation and Deepening
In the first moment of this stage, the deepening on environmental content from its contextual and systematization references influenced in achieving levels of appropriation and intensification. Environmental responsibility was presented, with an important implication in the professionals who became aware with the appropriation and deepening on their environment and its realities. The professionals generated ideas from the introduction of more complex knowledge about the environment, which allowed the apprehension of knowledge.
Actions
Scientific Working Groups. This activity allowed professionals to promote research in the hydro-energetic context, an educational space where the ideas formed were socialized, the elaboration of new concepts through workshops, scientific workshops, round tables and conversations through visits to rural communities.
Preparation of Environmental Projects. This activity initiated a process of systematic planning and projection with the participatory action of professionals who developed the acquired knowledge and pondered the efforts to achieve the proposed objectives.
Development of Procedures for the Environmental Management System. This activity allowed professionals to acquire deeper knowledge about the Environmental Management System (EMS), based on the Cuban Standard ISO 14001:2004 (2004), that they will apply in their work environment for the best professional performance. The analysis and reflection were carried out to prepare the EMS procedures applicable to the organization.
Presentation of the Environmental Legislation. This activity was carried out to develop elementary content on compliance with the Environmental Legislation on Hydro-energy, they need as a basis for their environmental training. They learned contents that have an environmental legal basis and whose essence lies in establishing the mechanisms that identify, update and guarantee access to the legal and other kind of requirements in force applicable to the activities carried out in Hydroenergy.
Discussion Workshop. This activity encouraged professionals to make reflections and explain their points of view regarding the content received in the preceding activities, which allowed the deepening and appropriation of environmental content applicable to the organization. The specialists showed a higher level of cognitive depth, through the exchange and the link with their professional performance.
3.2 Transfer and Transformation
In the second moment of this stage, a space for the deployment of relationships that revealed the different contexts was formed. There, the professionals influenced reflexively to transform and change, which provided greater environmental awareness and higher levels of development in the relationship professionals-environment. The professionals demonstrated their potential with a high level of creativity, applying the environmental content learned with independence, autonomy and a greater sense of belonging. It was the moment that the change that had been transiting since the previous stage was consolidated, presenting a level of commitment and responsibility towards the environment and adopting new positions with the transformation.
Actions
Environmental Risk Assessment. In this activity, spaces were created for the exchange of knowledge and experiences acquired from the preceding processes. During the debates promoted through workshops, the generation of environmental risks in activities in the workplace was discussed and identified for the analysis of possible negative environmental impacts. Spaces for the exchange of knowledge and experiences were created to deepen the issues with workshops and visits to hydroelectric plants.
Environmental Planning. This activity was carried out through workshops to establish fundamental criteria that encourage professionals to elaborate an environmental planning of socio-environmental activities. Environmental planning improves the capacity and decision-making of professionals to establish environmental commitments, objectives and goals through an Environmental Program (PA) and an Environmental Protection Plan (PPA) to analyze and deepen all significant environmental aspects in the activities where the professional works.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Results of the Application of the Action Plan to Hydroenergy Professionals
To obtain the results of the application of the action plan, surveys and interviews were applied to the selected group or sample of professionals to perform the post-test (pre-experiment).
For the development of the pre-experiment, the transcription of the results of the surveys and the interviews applied in the pre-test (Diagnosis) and in the post-test to the professionals of Hydroenergy was carried out.
In this way, the Likert scale (1932) cited by the University and Society. APA. Sixth edition Cruz and Campano (2007), was applied to each professional surveyed. That is an attitude scale with the indicators and descriptive categories to develop the transcription process of the verbal chains of the surveys and interviews, to quantitative values of each corresponding category of the scale.
The results of the transcription of the surveys and the interviews applied to the professionals in the pre-test and post-test allowed the corresponding statistical analyzes to be carried out in the research:
Statistical Processing of Results
Statistical analyzes were performed on the selected sample using the Source: SPSS
Software version 21.0., with a test prior to the experimental treatment to know the initial level of knowledge of the group (Pre-test; variable 1), and a post-treatment test (Post-test; variable 2) to know the final level of professional group’s knowledge (Tables 1 and 2).
Pre-test
TABLE 1 Results of the inter-element correlations of the evaluated indicators. Pre-test
| Inter-element correlations | Mean | Minimum | Maximum | Range | Maximum/ Minimum | Variance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.886 | 0.645 | 1.000 | 0.455 | 1.836 | 0.016 |
Post-test
TABLE 2 Results of the inter-element correlations of the evaluated indicators. Post-test
| Inter-element correlations | Mean | Minimum | Maximum | Range | Maximum/ Minimum | Variance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.947 | 0.771 | 1.000 | 0.229 | 1.297 | 0.004 |
The analysis of the results of the inter-element correlations evaluated presents in the pretest an average correlation coefficient of 0.886 with a range of 0.455 and variance of 0.016. In the post-test, the mean correlation coefficient is 0.947 with a range of 0.229 and variance of 0.004. The results of the correlations demonstrate that there is a high degree of inter-element relationship in the environmental contents evaluated, which were applied in the surveys and interviews with the professionals in the pre-test and post-test.
T-Test Analysis for Related Samples
Table 3 expresses the behavior of the means of the two variables (variable 1-variable 2) estimated from a sample. It is observed that the mean of variable 2 (38.4) is higher than the mean of variable 1 (36.9).
Table 4 relates that variable 1 test 96.2 is lower in the results with respect to variable 2 test 111.0. It is expressed that, for a 95% confidence interval in variable 2, the lower-upper tests are 37.6-39.1 and, in variable1, 36.1-37.7. In the analysis, higher values are presented in the tests of variable 2 of the post-test with respect to variable 1 of the pre-test.
TABLE 3 T Test for Related Samples
| Mean | Typical deviation | Standard error of the mean | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Variable 1 | 36.9333 | 1.48645 | 0.38380 |
| Variable 2 | 38.4000 | 1.33898 | 0.34572 |
Variable 1- Pre-test indicators
Variable 2 - Post-test indicators
TABLE 4 Difference between the means of the variables for the 95% confidence interval
| t value = 0 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| t | gl | Sig. (Bilateral) | Mean difference | 95% Confidence interval for the difference | ||
| Inferior | Superior | |||||
| Variable1 | 96.231 | 14 | 0.000 | 36.93333 | 36.1102 | 37.7565 |
| . | 111.072 | 14 | 0.000 | 38.40000 | 37.6585 | 39.1415 |
It is shown that the results obtained in the post-test (variable 2) present a higher stage than the pre-test (variable 1). It is evident that professionals present a superior stage of environmental knowledge, reflection and analysis of environmental problems from the acquired environmental culture, to achieve a transformation process, from the environmental treatment with the implementation of the action plan.
The implementation of the Action Plan allowed the apprehension of environmental knowledge in professionals through a professional training process.
From this statement Coronel and Lozano (2019), affirm that training, in addition to instructing, requires developing professional skills to ensure successful job performance, which leads to investigate into the essential aspects of the quality in the educational context.
Fuentes (2009), defines the training process for professionals, as the process that must have a conscious character and develop in the space of construction of meanings and senses by the subjects involved and expresses that environmental culture constitutes one of the expressions of the professional culture and for its appropriation requires the interactions between the diversity of subjects and the diversity of contexts.
The analysis of the results of the action plan through the application of surveys and interviews indicate that professionals in the practice of professional practice have acquired an environmental training with the apprehension of environmental knowledge, which have allowed cognitive changes in the face of environmental reality in Hydro-energy, greater creativity, reflection, criticism and analysis to solve the environmental problems in the technological process and their repercussion in the areas of vegetation and fauna in the communities where hydro-energy service is provided.
Taking these results into account Orellana (1996), expresses that, the dialectical unity between reflection and action, between theory and practice and the process developed through the survey, allows the transformation of the knowledge of a community into new knowledge, due to the critical and reflective analysis of reality that generates a process of rectification and reconstruction of knowledge, which identify the conceived solution routes, as a permanent process of study of reflection and transformation of reality.
Referring to these results Hernández et al. (2019), affirm that to form a responsible environmental conduct requires a change in the way of thinking in relation to the consequences of each decision or each action carried out and to assume with responsibility its results.
In this way, they present today a commitment to caring for the environment, to experiencing a change in thinking and responsibility to the environment, with attitudes that provide them with the understanding and appreciation of the mutual relationship between man, his culture and the surrounding environment, with decision-making that allows the formulation of codes of behavior regarding environmental quality to achieve the formation of an environmental culture. According to Marquez et al. (2017), acting in accordance with an environmental culture favors professional labor and social performance in sustainable development; that allows professionals to solve environmental problems derived from acting in a specific context in their professional area. Referring to these claims Molano & Herrera (2014), express that environmental training must rescue ancestral knowledge, integrate traditional practices with modern technological practices and return all knowledge produced to the communities.
In this way, professionals are able to identify and mitigate environmental risks in technological processes at hydroelectric plants in rural communities and are endowed with the knowledge to prepare community environmental projects, to generate new experiences by introducing scientific research and searching of solutions to environmental problems in the workplace.
From the results obtained, it is interpreted that, the formation of the environmental culture of hydro-energy professionals is based on the cultural training process in their professional practice and the development of the transforming capacities of professionals, taking into account the hydro-energy culture and the environmental culture, which are synthesized in the environmental hydro energetic culture through the systematization process.
CONCLUSIONS
The environmental training of hydro-energy professionals is based on the cultural training process and the transformative capacities of professionals in their professional practice.
The formation of environmental culture leads Hydro-energy professionals to responsible behavior, in a space for building environmental knowledge, with attitudes that provide understanding and appreciation of the relationship among man, culture and the surrounding environment, to formulate codes of commitment to caring for the environment.
The implementation of the action plan for professionals in the practice of professional work has allowed environmental training in the exercise of the profession that favors professional and work performance, with cognitive changes in the face of environmental reality in Hydro-energy, aimed at reflection, creativity, analysis and criticism to solve the environmental problems that originate in the technological process and its repercussion in rural communities.
