Abstract:

Constant changes in society also emphasize changes in the content of education of individual subjects; the same applies to geography. The phenomenon of globalization has also shaped a specific type of education known as global development education. Although this scope of education covers every area of our world, it is, unfortunately, a marginal topic in the educational process in the Slovak Republic. This is also documented by the non-updated National Strategy for Global Education for the period 2012-2016. The positive news is that the themes of the strategy harmonize the objectives of the current AGENDA 2030.

The paper aims are to define the topics of global development education, evaluate the inclusion of particular topics in geography textbooks for Grade 5-9 of primary schools and create activities for Grade 6 to incorporate selected missing topics of global development education. Considering this specific type of education, our effort was to develop affective goals (attitudes and values) for students - to understand the interdependence and interconnectedness of different areas of the world and different dimensions of development; psychomotoric goals (skills, abilities) - to think systemically and look for connections; cognitive goals (knowledge) - to know the causes and consequences of the most critical global problems.

The paper was prepared based on scientific and professional information sources, textbooks of geography, and various study materials of non-profit organizations. Specific applications of selected topics of global development education were designed using activities for Grade 6 of primary school, further verified by e-learning. A test method was applied using tasks to supplement the information. The obtained information was processed and interpreted by the methods of explanatory description, comparative and system method, and the method of descriptive statistics.

The results present an overview of the current state of integration of global development education topics into currently used geography textbooks, an overview of ideas for incorporating individual topics into geography curricula in Grades 5-9 and creating and integrating global development education topics through simple activities for Grade 6 of elementary schools. Their verification by e-learning provided us with an adequate overview of students' level of work with resources, their thinking and the suitability of the activities, or their possible correction. We conclude that NGOs have a proven dominance in introducing global development education to schools; they mainly cooperate with universities.

Keywords:

Global development education, Teaching geography, Activities, Verification by e-learning, AGENDA 2030.