Geology at the Lower Secondary Educational Level (ISCED 2): Comparison of the Czech Republic, Estonia, Slovenia and Poland

Abstract

Geology is a science with a highly interdisciplinary character. Thus, in education it is ideal to provide education in a form integrated with the other branches of natural sciences under the subject of Science or Natural Sciences. However, most European countries prefer separate teaching of the individual educational fields and subsume geology within one of them, most frequently biology or geography. The submitted study discusses the potential advantages and disadvantages of various strategies of allocation of geological topics in education. A comparative method is used to evaluate and analyse curricular documents in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Slovenia and Poland at the lower secondary educational level. The comparison is focused on the scope and incorporation of selected educational content of geology into individual educational subjects, and on the recommended teaching methods suitable for interpreting geological subject matter. On the basis of this knowledge from abroad, individual subjects are selected for the “best practice” and subsequently proposed for implementation under the conditions in the Czech Republic. This seeks to make geology more familiar and attractive for students at the lower secondary level of education.

Frequent Limits and Advantages of Conditions for Geology Education: Example of Czech and Slovak State Curricula

“…Subsequently, general recommendations were formulated that should increase the interest in geology. The study draws on previously published results by Jedličková et al (2019).…”

“…Also, geology as a boundary discipline faces the ever-present question of the integration level. If geology cannot be taught fully integrated into a complex subject of geoscience, the merger of geology and physical geography should be considered, as is the case in most European countries (Fermeli et al, 2011;Jedličková et al, 2019). Physical geography usually describes and explains basically the Earth's shapes that arise from endogenous or exogenous geological processes and links them with the environment, human influence on the environment, renewable and non-renewable natural resources, agriculture, spatial planning, and other disciplines.…”

“…For these reasons, the comparison of both states is more transparent. Although the analysis is performed on only two examples of the curriculum, other comparative studies with a similar focus, but different states, are taken into account (e.g., Jedličková et al, 2019;Kácovský et al, 2021). The study discusses the possible causes of the negative perception of geology arising from the conception of the curriculum and brings general proposals to eliminate them and to increase interest in the field among pupils.…”