Vertebrate ethograms for secondary schools

The aim of this thesis is to create an educational programme for teaching ethology at grammar schools, in which theoretical knowledge will be directly linked with practical activities. To fulfil the goals of this ethological educational programme there is used the creation of ethograms.The whole educational programme is divided into three parts. In the first part pupils are acquainted with the theory of ethology and individual types of animal behaviour and also with the principles of direct observation of animals, the creation of ethological records and their evaluation. In the second part pupils observe directly a chosen animal in zoological gardens or similar institutions and on the basis of their obtained theoretical knowledge they describe its behaviour to previously prepared forms. In the third part pupils create ethograms of vertebrates based on the gained data, which are part of an expert seminar paper in a form of an expert text, a power-point presentation or a poster. In these papers pupils keep the basic format and content rules for ethogram creation.To determine the suitability, adequacy and benefits of this educational programme there is used the evaluation of the output papers created by pupils, a questionnaire and the findings acquired from the realization of the whole programme. The..