Chapter 8 - Community school project: Used vegetable oil collection at CBTis No. 90

The design of the Community School Project (PEC) aims to strengthen spaces where students play a central, active, and leading role in choosing projects (Secretaría de Educación Pública [SEP], 2023), focusing on real-world problems through didactic planning that fosters creativity and reflection. The objective is to examine the environmental awareness impact of the PEC: Used Cooking Oil Collection, and how it promotes context-based learning that is meaningful to first-semester students of the New Mexican School in the Curricular Learning Unit (UAC) Humanidades I at the CENTRO DE BACHILLERATO TECNOLÓGICO industrial y de servicios No. 90 in Loma Bonita, Oaxaca, during the September 2024–January 2025 school term. For this case, a qualitative approach was used with a group of 163 randomly selected students aged 15 to 16, applying a pre-test and post-test to assess changes in habits related to the collection and disposal of used cooking oil. The PEC results show increased participation in the proper collection of this waste within the community. Finally, this case suggests that implementing projects contextualized to environmental issues promotes student awareness and shared responsibility toward their surroundings.