| Abstract |
The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate Environmental Education activities for the Pleistocene mammals of Rethymnon, the fossils of which are presented at the Palaeontological Museum of Rethymnon. These activities, which were developed for elementary students of 5th and 6th grade, are consistent firstly with the principles of Place based education, a current approach of Environmental Education, that uses the local community’s resources for teaching a range of different topics and secondly with Inquiry based learning, a current approach in Science Education, which promotes the active participation of students in the learning process.
In particular, the aim of these activities was to provide students with a direct and meaningful experience of their local environment, enhancing their connection to their place. At the same time students were introduced to new scientific concepts, such as ‘fossil’ and ‘fossilization’ and practiced scientific skills such as observation. Eventually students had to reflect on the reasons of extinction of these mammals in order to accomplish the connection to the current environmental problem of biodiversity loss.
In order to develop a nonformal environmental program, North American Association for Environmental Education provides a set of recommendations that can be used to ensure its quality. According to these guidelines a) the educational activities had to address an identified environmental problem, b) visits were made to the museum to reveal opportunities for learning, c) observations were taken from class visits that focused on students’ behavior and their interaction with the exhibition and especially from the focus group. For this reason special observations were taken as well as interviews from fifth grade students. The findings led to the formation of the educational material that was redesigned through summative assessment, with three postgraduate students and a fifth grade (11 students, 8 boys and 3 girls), giving the final educational material. Finally the reformed educational activities were field tested with sixth grade students and evaluated.
This educational material consists of two main inquiry activities. The first activity was focused on the concept of fossil and the formation of marine fossils and the second one on the process of finding fossils. Two more activities were developed, an activity for group formation and a game, a treasure hunt. In these activities, students at first made predictions about which of the provided objects were fossils or not. Afterwards they attempted to construct their own replicas of marine fossils in order to check their initial predictions but also to learn about the process of fossilization. In the last activity they worked as paleontologists, cleaning and studying their own "fossil".
In the activity of group formation students were divided into groups, named after four paleontologists whose work is historically and scientifically related to the exhibition, learning this way the importance of their work. In the treasure hunt, in which the students through solving small riddles related to the animals that lived and were extinct in Pleistocene, was attempted to make them reflect on the reasons why animals are threatened nowadays with extinction and make the connection with the environmental problem of biodiversity loss.
The final field test was implemented with 11 students at the Palaeontological Museum and lasted about 3.5 hours. Empirical data was collected a) from the students’ worksheets, b) from the recording of the final implementation and c) from the writer’s personal observations and diary.
The evaluation of the final testing of the educational material was carried out in two axes. Firstly it was investigated, whether the material is in accordance with the principles of Inquiry based learning, according to the guidelines as they were described in PriSciNet, a European program that University of Crete had taken part in and secondly its usability (the duration, the complexity of the materials, the degree of difficulty of the activities and the understanding of the worksheets by the students).
For the implementation of educational activities, everyday materials were used and not any specialized scientific equipment. Students in the final field test worked in groups, completed worksheets, approached aspects of the concept of fossil and the process of fossilization, they practiced in taking measurements and observation, completed the practical part of the activities making fossils (mold and casts), and then they worked like palaeontologists with the help of a replica bone.
The connection with the environmental problem of biodiversity loss is accomplished by the last activity, the treasure hunt, which due to limited time did not take place. However, opportunities for Environmental Education were given during the implementation of the educational activities (pupils' walk from school to museum, garden of the museum with local aromatic plants etc.).
Regarding the concept of fossil, although the students' ideas were not examined in the present study, it is worth mentioning that students in a pre- implementation worksheet were referring to fossils using the words dinosaurs, skeletons, skulls and gems, while in a respective post-implementation worksheet they used the words animals, shells, and prints while they attempted to describe the process of fossilization.
In conclusion, the final material is consistent to the principles of Inquiry based learning and Place-based education. A teacher's guide in which all the activities are presented with details, was developed through this study and it will be attempted to be printed in order to be used by the primary teachers of Rethymno.
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Ανάπτυξη και αξιολόγηση προγράμματος περιβαλλοντικής εκπαίδευσης με τη μορφή δραστηριοτήτων διερεύνησης για μαθητές Ε' και ΣΤ' τάξης δημοτικού σχολείου στο παλαιοντολογικό μουσείο Ρεθύμνου
