Primary School Teachers’ Opinions on Teaching the Environmental Studies Subject Outside of the Classroom

Abstract

With the curriculum reform of the basic school in the Republic of Slovenia, the experiential learning and conducting classes outside the classroom become one of the more important starting points for the subject of Environmental Studies, which is taught in the first three years. With the empirical study, we wanted to research which location is most often selected by educators for Environmental Studies outside the classroom, how often they conduct such activities, which work methods they use, how many hours out of total subject hours for Environmental Studies they dedicate to teaching outside the classroom, and in what form they wish to acquire additional knowledge on this subject. We discovered that educators, when teaching the subject of Environmental Studies outside the classroom, most often use an area located in direct vicinity of the school, and that the largest percentage of participants very often teaches the subject of Environmental Studies outside the classroom once per month. Both analyses showed certain statistically significant differences regarding the location of the school and the educator’s years of employment. The results showed that educators, when teaching the subject of Environmental Studies outside the classroom, most often use the method of direct observation, while the least used methods are work with texts and learning resources. Predominantly, educators dedicate up to 30% of total planned hours of the subject of Environmental Studies to conducting class outside the classroom. The analysis showed that educators want to obtain additional information, knowledge, and competence for teaching Environmental Studies outside the classroom primarily by examples of good practices.