Two years ago, we organized, with our Czech partner EUROSCHOLA, ecological project "Connect with nature" at Secondary schools. The main idea of the project was, by new methods and activities, to contribute for that students think about things which are connected with ecology around us and behave „nature friendly" in their every day life. We finished the project successfully, but we realized that it would be helpful to make this type of activities already in younger age. We consulted with teachers of biology at Primary schools and found a new ecological project ECOnnection for pupils at Primary schools. For us it was really important, that this project is as practical as possible, so children experience, see, feel, touch and try everything what we were discussing about. Then we wanted this knowledge is gained out of school so it is an unique experience. Within the project we cooperated with two Primary schools in Čadca - Rázusova and Komenského.
The first activity of the project was a workshop "Everything is connected with everything". Two classes took part in every workshop, one was from Primary school Komenského and the second one from Primary school Rázusova. The workshop started with short acquaintance with the topic in one of the schools. (We tried to connect not only through borders and ecologicaly, but also within our town). Then the excursion followed to stock and separator in Podzávoz. There the children could see, what is happening with the garbage they produce at home or at school. They were quite shocked that the separation is finished by people and that it is really not an easy job. They realized how much garbage we produce and that by proper separation we could really improve a lot of things. We are taking this opportunity to thank whole team of the stock and separator in Podzávoz who showed us their work and explained children the principles of separation. After the excursion children went by bus to Oščadnica where they continued with interactive activities in pension, so they could learn the most about how everything is connected with everything. The activity already started in the bus with the game that children had to guess, how much garbage is produced by family with 4 members per day. Children simulated how it would look like if they behave ecologicaly and if they behave as consumers.
Practical experiences are the most important for us. That´s why the activity "our daily garbage" was also part of the program. There children practised separation of garbage and we warned them on tricky questions like for example CD in paper packaging, which is separated in three components: CD is dangerous garbage, carry bag inside belongs to the plastic materials and paper packaging to the paper.
The duration of ECOnnection was one school year and 8 classes - seventh and eighth classes - took part and it consisted of two workshops and two cross-border exchange meetings. We hope that the experience from project motivated the children to think more of the consequences of their every day life and that everyone is able to make changes.
