Back to Nature – Developing an experiential, nature-close innovative pedagogy for primary schools Erasmus Project

Project Title

Back to Nature – Developing an experiential, nature-close innovative pedagogy for primary schools

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Environment and climate change; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education

Project Summary

The purpose of the creation of the project was that a new cooperation mechanism should be produced in Europe, where the primary school children are motivated for learning, while obtaining key competences by applying the methods used in the education of sustainability and environmental protection.
The main purpose of the project is the elaboration, testing and applying of a new experiential, nature-close pedagogy in elementary educational institutions so as to improve the students’ basic and transversal competences. The schools integrate the environmental education elements in their daily teaching practice by a multidisciplinary approach, where 9-11-year old pupils will be able to understand the relation among the different educational fields: i) Natural Sciences, ii) Social Sciences, iii) Art, iv) I.T.
6 partners participated the project: 3 elementary educational institutions, 1 upper-level educational institution, 2 non-profit organisations.
The most important products and activities of the project:
1 The making of the document titled „Review analysis of experiential learning practices in primary education in the participating countries” – as an important project result (a base for making the intellectual output of the project)
The analysis contains both secondary and primary research. The primary research was made up of the making of the surveys and deep-interviews, which were carried out by the target group members living in the partner countries (9-11-year-old pupils and teachers).The survey consisted of two parts: a general section, which measured the pupils’ environment and an institutional environment section, which examined how the pupils see their schools and their lessons because the aim was to make the lessons more interactive and give more emphasis on sustainability.
2 „Environmental pedagogy for improving primary school teacher’s competences in transmitting knowledge in an experiential way through environmental education” – the intellectual output of the project
The teaching material, which was elaborated, consists of the following parts:
– Basic concepts of environmental education and learning based on experiences
– The second part of the teaching material presents teaching methods
– The third module is a practice-oriented part that contains suggestions of scenarios (lesson plans).
3 A five-day teacher training
The five-day training was carried out in Nagykanizsa in the period between the 5th and the 9th February 2018. The purpose of the training was to present and teach the prepared methodology to the participants, who could obtain those new skills and knowledge, which are necessary to build the pedagogy of Back to Nature project in their everyday teaching practice. The training was held by the experts of the partners, who had taken part in the elaboration of the methodology previously. Before the training an open call was promoted in the partner institutions and the participants were chosen from the applicants.
The training was about the following topics: the basics of environmental education, basic principles of sustainability, environmentally-conscious behaviour, project-based methods, teamwork at school, everyday aspects of life in a built environment, healthy lifestyles– main focus is on human beings, biodiversity, environmental education from a global aspect.
Altogether 18 people took part in the training and the event was broadcast live via webstreaming at the same time. Every day there was a possibility for professional discussions and feedbacks about the passed-off programmes between the participants and the trainers.
4 A five-day summer camp
The five-day international summer camp was organised in Romania between the 23rd and the 27th August 2018 and 9-11-year-old pupils and their accompanying teachers took part in it, altogether 45 pupils and 9 teachers. The purpose of the event was the practical testing of the previously elaborated methodical teaching material. In order to do this outdoor learning activities were prepared and carried out, which served the improvement of the pupils’ key competences. This event ensured the teachers, who had taken part in the previous teacher training, to test the obtained competences and new knowledge in practice, in the forms of informal, out-of-school activities.
5 Final conference
The final conference of the project was held in Nagykanizsa, on the 23rd November 2018. In the first part of the event the intellectual outputs created in the project and the implemented activities were presented. In the second half of the event there were lectures about the roles of primary schools, universities and civil organisations in environmental education.
As the result of the project, an innovative, flexible, easily adaptable, practice-oriented and nature-close pedagogy was developed for primary school teachers dealing with students aged 9-11.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 118949,25 Eur

Project Coordinator

Zrínyi Miklós – Bolyai János Általános Iskola & Country: HU

Project Partners

• IMRO-DDKK Nonprofit Kft.
• Scoala Gimnaziala “Szentivani Mihaly” Galesti
• Dvojezicna osnovna sola I Lendava
• UNIVERZA V MARIBORU
• Focus Eco Center