Model Ecosystems in a School Garden and Their Use in the Teaching of Botany in the Lower Grades of Primary School

The idea of teaching pupils directly in the natural environment is not new at all. Similar ideas were already promoted by the famous Czech educator Jan Amos Komensky in the 17th century. But at his time, it was much easier to realize them. Nowadays, many city schools (and not only them) are situated far away from any kind of green. Then, it is quite demanding to reach a nice place where to spend a lesson of botany observing nature and learning to understand it. That is why using schoolgardens for purposes of learning in the natural environment seems to be quite reasonable - especially when the gardens are enriched by some models of ecosystems, that are typical for Czech landscape. Learning in such a type of garden is thought to have a very positive effect on pupils. It is believed to stop the process of children loosing contact with real nature and to help pupils develope a tight relation to it, which is very improtant for their environmental thinking. It is also absolutely sure, that active learning by manipulating real things and getting familiar with them by using all five senses makes the learning process efficient. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org