Regional Scientific Seminar «The European experience of ecological education in Ukraine»

December 14 in Oleksandr Dovzhenko Hlukhiv National Pedagogical University, on the basis of preschool faculty within grant programme Erasmus+, Jean Monnet direction took place Regional Scientific Seminar «The European experience of ecological education in Ukraine». The preschool teachers from our kindergartens and from the regional kindergartens, the teachers from Putyvl College, undergraduate students and all interested in the problem of environmental education and environmental safety in Ukraine took part in it.

The theme of the seminar was very topical. Ecological culture of the personality is formed in the process of learning. The harmonious coexistence of people and nature depends on ecological culture.

The EU countries have the experience in this field and our country as the European one can use it in the educational process, realizing the ecological educational content of the younger generation.

The aim of the seminar was the exchange by the information about the difficult methodically-organizational and substantive-procedural aspects of ecological education in the countries of the European Union and the possibilities of their integration in Ukraine.

During the seminar the participants heard reports on the following issues:

1. Children’s ecological education before school in the EU countries.
2. Schoolchildren’s ecological education in the EU countries.
3. Students’ ecological education in the EU countries.
4. Using the EU countries’ ecological experience in the education of children and youth in Ukraine.

Special interest was caused by the performances from the neхt themes: «Society Impact on the ecological culture formation in the EU and Ukraine». (Olena Melnyk); «Education for sustainable development in the system of pedagogical specialists’ preparation: international European experience using». (Inna Korenieva); «Environmental education programmes’ content for preschoolers in the European Union» (Liudmyla Zahorodnia); «Professional training of the specialists in the preservation and protection of the environment in higher educational institutions of the European Union countries» (Iryna Danyl’chenko); «Forest kindergartens in Denmark» (Iryna Skorobogata).

With the special interest the participants perceived the speech of Tatiana Maksymova, the preschool teacher of the 1st category, from the kindergarten «Cheburashka», on the theme: «Formation of the senior preschoolers’ ecological culture bases in the process of the Dutch project «Aflatot» implementation».

Summing up the seminar, the participants in their speeches noted that they have heard a lot of interesting and useful information from a professional point of view, which will be very useful in teaching of the youth.

In addition, they expressed a wish to hold the next seminar in the form of training and to issue the Handbook for preschool teachers about the preschoolers’ ecological education using the elements of the experience of the EU countries’ environmental education in it.