No abstract

No abstract

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 Unported License, permitting all non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Environmental education in botanical gardens that deals with the conservation and study of plant biodiversity and environmental protection can be successfully integrated into any level of education. A successful option for such integration can be considered an environmental project launched in 2021 for pharmaceutical students in Peter the Great Botanical Garden of the Komarov Botanical Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences. The paper describes an experiment to identify the nature of the leading motives and the direction of students behavior in environmentally significant situations using the value-normative methodology of G.E. Zalessky. Experimental data allowed us to determine the preliminary typology of the level of environmental culture of pharmaceutical students before the start of the project. The results of the experiment show that the students of Murmansk Medical College developed a slightly higher level of ecological culture than the students of Saint Petersburg Pharmaceutical College (24% and 16%, respectively). However, at the same time 33% of the students of Murmansk Medical College showed a low level of ecological culture, which is almost twice higher than the students of Saint Petersburg Pharmaceutical College (16%). According to the indicator of a high level of ecological culture, pharmaceutical students of both experimental groups approach the results of O.I. Saltykova among schoolchildren and significantly exceed the results of students of other specialties.

The paper provides an overview of the tour guide activities in one of the oldest gardens in Russia - Peter the Great Botanical garden of Komarov Botanical Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences. It is the first time the authors have summarized the experience of working with visitors of the Peter the Great Botanical garden from the end of the 19th century to the present. Much attention is paid to the history of the excursion business in Russia and in the Botanical garden. The incentive to work was the growing interest in Botanical gardens and various forms of the excursion activity that now exist in the Botanical garden of Saint Petersburg. Modern science about excursions broadly describes general basics of conducting excursions, but practical techniques are not presented enough. Therefore, the task of methodological developments for the guides of the Botanical garden becomes relevant. Based on historical experience, the authors describe the rules for preparing for excursions in the Botanical garden, aspects when choosing information for excursions, special training methods, and general recommendations for excursions organization. Specific knowledge about the content of excursions in the Botanical garden will help specialists effectively and competently organize activities for environmental and biological education of both adults and young visitors.