Environmental awareness of pre-school teachers

Environmental education programmes encountered in early childhood should be designed professionally and from the children's perspective, as well as adapted to preschoolers and the demands of active learning in this age. They should also be based on the children's love of nature and their desire to explore the natural world. In order to achieve the development goals, with particular reference to the environmental awareness, it is necessary to involve children in the active exploration of the world or the immediate environment in their early childhood. That is why, preschools use various methods, active learning strategies and active citizenship. Thereby, they are fully aware of the personal example of preschool teachers and other expert colleagues in the preschool as a key role and its willingness to act responsibly towards the environment. The introduction part of this degree dissertation is focused on the various observations and philosophical questions of the human coexistence in an (natural) environment. There is also a presentation of binding international documents specifying the environmental education in educational institutions. Further on, the paper gives a summary of the Slovene national documents describing environmental and social developments in Slovenia. Moreover, it presents programmes dealing with environmental education for children in different ways, it summarises goals and activity examples pertaining to the environmental education in the Preschool Curriculum (1999). The empirical part includes the results of the questionnaire for preschool teachers. It gives an analysis and interpretation of data which confirm that preschool teachers agree on the importance of a child being confronted with the environmental education already in preschools. Moreover, they also believe that a preschool child is far more open-minded; therefore, they think that it is only reasonable that he or she should become acquainted with the nature and healthy environment in the preschool age. The results of the questionnaire have provided as well that the preschool teachers are aware of the fact that they are just as important in the environmental education of children as the parents