Programs for schools
Programs for students
Educational programs for students are being implemented through the Institute’s activities on presenting the values and importance of natural resources (areas and species) to primary and high school children, thus raising awareness about the importance of conservation, with the aim to build knowledge and skills of environmentally active and responsible citizens.Depending on the topic (in the field of natural resources, biodiversity and geodiversity protection) and the age of students, programs are being implemented through a single or a series of lectures, presentations, creative workshops, eco – play tools, specific research field trips to natural areas, exhibitions of children's drawings and photographs, eco-camps and activities, film screenings and the like.
Educational programs are implemented in the classrooms, Institute’s premises, sites in protected areas, or in schools and extracurricular school activities.
A special program for students is "Knowledge Against Fear", in which children learn about snakes and hornets.
Workshops for preschoolers
"We color and learn about nature" was the first organized educational program of the Institute intended for preschoolers, that is, children in kindergartens. In these programs our youngest citizens, with the help of Institute’s associates, color themed coloring books and learn about the protection of plant and animal species."Eco-jumping" is a program in which children learn about rare plant and animal species by passing a path made of flower drawings on which they move depending on the number they get by throwing two dice. If they step on a flower containing a question, together with the Institute’s associates, they try to find out which species is the answer to the question. This is repeated until they pass the entire path.
As part of the eco-games for preschool children, they can also play a game of memory using cards showing the plants and animals, they can fit together puzzle pieces into an image of a lynx, Pancic’s grasshopper or a griffon vulture and guess where the individual plants and animals live. Using a special kid’s height measure ruler they can measure whether they are higher than a great bustard, beaver or a bear.
Seminars for teachers
As part of cooperation with schools, special programs are being planned to complement the school curriculum and permanent upgrading of teachers in the course of workshops and lectures on their professional development, all with the aim of realizing curriculum materials about the nature of our country through teaching and extracurricular activities, which are based on the principles of interactive teaching.The Institute has a multi-decade practice in organizing professional development programs for teachers in the field of nature conservation and environmental protection.
The purpose of these programs is to train teachers to use the findings of the Institute in the environmental education, by incorporating these programs into the regular school curriculum and extracurricular activities in nature. The Institute has three seminars of this type:
- "Serbian Nature - aspects and the importance of protection"
- "School as a partner in the environmental protection"
- "A world in a tree: Tree as a factor in a healthy environment"
The content of these seminars is realized through lectures, presentations, workshops, discussion groups and a professional fieldwork. A comprehensive instructional and teaching material that can be directly applied in teaching practice is provided for the participants of the seminar.
