Učilnica v naravi in narava v učilnici

The classroom in nature as a pedagogical concept offers students content in the outdoor environment and represents an extension of the classic classroom. Learning from textbooks and getting to kno...

The classroom in nature as a pedagogical concept offers students content in the outdoor environment and represents an extension of the classic classroom. Learning from textbooks and getting to know the environment with help of pictures is not effective enough. Children need experiential learning to develop into complete personalities. While learning outside the school building, there is a direct interaction with nature, the experience is more connected, and the learning material gains meaning if it is discussed in a natural environment. The reasons why we decided on the project are: even after the end of the project, the classroom in nature will remain a constant with all three partners, the teachers will acquire the necessary competences for a different way of teaching, the school garden will encourage students to spend their free time in nature and enable them to gain direct experience, to increase number of lessons outside and increase students' knowledge about gardening, to try new teaching metodologies for outside learning and by working in nature, we wanted to encourage care for the environment and socially responsible behaviour and respect for people, nature and everything that lives.

We held a preparatory meeting where the coordinators agreed on everything necessary for the project to run as smoothly as possible, three international meetings - mobilities, three job shadowings, set up three outdoor classrooms, each school established its own garden, an e-book Collection of lessons' plans for outside learning, Brochure of gardening vocabulary in four languages and Memory game cards with gardening vocabulary. We introduced the gardening activity, held a School Market Day, promoted the project in all three countries via television, radio, newspapers and other media, established project websites, including a joint international one, the project was presented on several various events, local and national, Facebook page. We published about our project on Twinspace. We carried out three mobilities with students and three job shadowings as promised. In addition to all of the above, right at the beginning of the project, we established a control group consisting of coordinators from all three schools. The team monitored the progress of the project and ensured the smooth flow of activities.

All schools set up outdoor classrooms with garden, a brochure with gardening vocabulary in four languages, Memory game with cards related to vocabulary, an E-book collection of learning materials for learning and teaching outdoors, a Facebook page, a website of the project, Memory padlet, where we published memories of the activities carried out, the Writereader application; students published their knowledge about gardening and various plants, surveys between students and teachers at the beginning and at the end of the project and realised that knowledge of science increased among students for 12% average and and outdoor teaching has increased for 50 %. There are new activities in schools - gardening and School Market day. At job shadowings, teachers acquired new knowledge, learned about new methods and approaches, acquired new skills in the use of various educational applications, acquired new ICT skills, learned about working with students with special needs and severe developmental disabilities, and strengthened their knowledge of English. There happened individual decisions of teachers to renew their knowledge of English and we exceeded the number of mobilities (three people) and at job shadowings by nine people.