ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION AT PRE-SCHOOL LEVEL

Abstract

Does learning more about trees teaches a child to preserve them better? Lithuania is a land of forests. We simply cannot imagine our lives without trees and grasslands. They play a huge role in our lives and they are vital to nature in general. The experience of an educator, being able to observe children‘s day-to-day activities, has proven that the relationship beetween a nowadays child and nature is quite problematic. Not only do they not know much about it, sometimes they can become harmful to nature. Children like to play in a meadow, pick flowers, but sometimes they also like to violate trees and litter. Parents don‘t always have time to tell their children about environment protection, so they leave it to the teachers. The main goal of this project was to give children knowledge about nature, the damage people can cause upon it and, most importantly, induce children‘s love towards the world around them and a desire to cherish nature. The project continued for 4 weeks in a pre-school group (age 6-7). In the course of this project we conversed, read children literature about nature, children made rules, created little books about trees, solved crosswords, searched encyclopedias, performed experiments and took photographs of various objects outdoors. We also visited a museum of Vilnius forests and an oak grove in Dūkštai, where children picked garbage, planted seeds and had a chance to create freely. The theme of our project proved itself to be quite relevant – children gained more knowledge about nature and understood the harm people can cause on our environment. Keywords: experiment, observation, nature, environment protection.