The aim of this thesis is to research how an educational nature path on the historically-important Rifnik hill affects fifth-graders’ learning about the life of people in the past, the hill’s geographical characteristics, as well as the characteristics and meaning of the archaeological Rifnik hill site and its surroundings. Additionally, we will analyse how this type of interactive fieldwork affects the children’s physical and psychological well-being.
The main question of this thesis is how to encourage children from Šentjur to learn about the geographical and historical features of Rifnik and its surroundings. We suppose that primary school pupils do not realize the importance of the Rifnik hill. This is why we decided to construct educational e-learning content and an educational nature path, the first in this area, which will contribute greatly to the process of learning about the local life of the people in the past.
The thesis consists of three integral wholes, complementing and upgrading one another in the theoretical, practical and empirical parts.
The theoretical part acknowledges in detail the historical significance of the Rifnik hill, as well as the open-air museum Rifnik and its function. Another aspect we present is the experiential learning through the method of fieldwork and learning with the use of information technology.
The practical part was performed with the help of pupils from the 5th grade of the Primary School Hruševec Šentjur. A circular educational and electronic nature path on Rifnik was designed based on theoretical knowledge. Content was prepared for the didactic lesson plan for the teachers before the fieldwork, containing a brochure with instructions and exercises for the pupils to work on in the course of the educational nature path. An electronic educational path was presented, available on the e-learning platform Raziskovanje Rifnika, which includes six educational videos with integrated interactive tasks for the pupils.
In the empirical part we present the results of a mock exam test, completed a couple of days before the interactive learning about Rifnik and its surroundings, and the results of a test completed after the interactive learning about Rifnik and its surroundings.
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