Mobilizing Pro-Environmental Values and Environmental Peace Culture Through Place-Based Education in the Colombian Amazon

In schools located in the Colombian Amazon, there is still limited empirical evidence on how students connect pro-environmental values with emotions and environmental peace culture. In this article, environmental peace culture is understood as a way of learning to care for nature, live with it, and assume shared responsibility for its protection. The study investigated “Sembrando Paz Ambiental”, a place-based pedagogical proposal implemented among secondary school students through experiential, playful, and participatory activities. A convergent mixed-methods design was employed, integrating a quasi-experimental pretest–posttest component with a qualitative analysis of students’ perceptions and pedagogical productions. The quantitative component included 66 paired cases assessed through a 24-item Likert scale, with data analyzed using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. The qualitative component included open-ended responses, drawings, and written productions analyzed through thematic coding and co-occurrence analysis in ATLAS.ti. The findings revealed statistically significant increases across all pro-environmental values, with the hedonic value showing the largest effect size. Qualitative findings associated environmental peace culture with emotional well-being, cooperation, care for nature, and territorial belonging. The study contributes to the literature by showing that the mobilization of pro-environmental values depends not only on normative conservation discourses, but also on pedagogical experiences that connect emotion, territory, and environmental care.