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Outdoor environmental education

Abstract

The main focus in my thesis is on outdoor education, which in the subject of natural science directs pupils to explore the environment that surrounds us. In the first triad, discovering nature teaches pupils how to use all of their senses and work with concrete materials. Specificity of teaching natural science outside the classroom is a direct contact with nature, which encourages a positive and respectful attitude towards nature and educates for sustainable development. In the theoretical part of the thesis, details of outdoor education and principles that teachers should follow when working outdoors are presented, followed by recommendations where and how to organize outdoor education and how to prepare before lessons. Problems which teachers encounter during teaching outside the classroom and advice how to minimize them are defined. I described the subject of natural science with the main objectives, didactic recommendations and suggestions of activities for outdoor education. In the empirical part, I used a survey questionnaire to determine what portion of lessons teachers organize outdoors. The results showed that almost half of the teachers organize from 11 to 20 % of the course outside the classroom and that there are no differences between teachers working in rural or urban environment. Working with concrete materials is the reason that most motivates teachers to have lessons outdoors and organizational problems most often lead to avoidance of outdoor education

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