Changing Horizons in Geography Education - HERODOT Network ...

A pupils’ approach to a judicial conflict between riversand humansNikos LambrinosSchool of Education, Dept. of Primary Education, Aristotle Universityof Thessaloniki, Greece, GR-54124e-mail: lambrinos@eled.auth.grAbstractThis paper presents the idea, the steps, the implementation and the results of a primaryschool project. The project was based on the personification of a river which complainedto the humans about the way they treated its water and basin and finally had to prosecutethe humans in court. Because of the seriousness of the charges the court had consisted ofa “public prosecutor” (sixth form pupils of the 1 st pilot primary school) a “counsel for thedefence” (sixth form pupils of the 2 nd pilot primary school) and the “jury” (sixth form pupilsof the 3 rd pilot primary school). Then, the pupils were asked to gather evidence from books,newspapers and the Internet to support the rivers (pupils from the first primary school) andhumans (pupils from the second primary school). The evidence was based on environmentalissues, recreation, emergency (like fire), agricultural needs etc. The trial lasted three hours.All pupils followed the rules like being in a real court, providing evidence for the supportof their “client” (the river or the humans) and the “jury” were taking notes on the evidence.Finally, the “jury” announced their verdict and the “judge” sentenced the humans.The project and the followed procedure showed that the pupils respond betterwhenever the teacher gives them the chance to get an active role and simulate reallife while learning. Many pupils acted like real lawyers and searched intensively forinformation in order to support their ideas.Key words: environmental geography, trial, rivers, humans, active learningIntroductionDuring the school year 2001-2002 a pilot project named “supple zone of multithematicactions”, was applied in Greek primary schools (Greek Official Gazette1366, 2001). This project was based on creating a free zone of school subjects (2−4hours a week), where teachers and students were able to deal with various subjects oftheir own interest. One of the proposed subjects was environmental education (EE)through a student’s social and physical environment and also their contact with thelocal environment. A very important element of the “supple zone” project was thatteachers were at last free to apply new teaching methods instead of concentratingon the old traditional ones.The next step that followed towards the new perspective on the content of schoolsubjects, was the so called Cross Curriculum Program (Greek Official Gazette 1375,2001) which became law in early 2002 (without being clear when its application will48