Spiders and cockroaches are often labelled by school children as some of the less popular animals, however they are not aware of the important ecologic role those animals have. Beside the fear, people often feel reluctance or disgust toward spiders and cockroaches. The negative attitude the school children have is due to numerous wrong perceptions and prejudices. The aim of this thesis was to find out the attitudes and perceptions of the children of sixth and seventh grade concerning spiders and cockroaches. 149 school children from 8 classes of 2 primary schools were participating in our research. We carried out a survey to check the knowledge and attitude toward spiders and cockroaches before and after experiential part of the lesson in which live animals, i. e. tarantula and cockroaches, were shown to children. The results show that children have more positive attitudes and perceptions towards spiders in comparison to cockroaches. The attitudes school children have about spiders and cockroaches are influenced by gender, frequency of spending time in natural environment and direct experience with animals, whereas their knowledge is influenced by gender and frequency of spending time in natural environment only. The results have not shown the influence of direct experience with animals. Attending the experiential lessons has shown influence on knowledge of school children but not on attitude, however, tactile experience with animals has merely positive influence. Our results show a positive impact of experiential lessons which can be a good motivation for school teachers to use this method more often in order to increase the knowledge and shape positive attitude towards nature and animals.
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