Abstract:

The development of civilization brings along crisis situations in almost all spheres of life. These have a negative impact on the life, property and health of the population. Current examples are the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Crises are a current topic that must also be included in the modern education system.

Currently, the preparation of students within crisis situations appears to be insufficient - either in terms of knowledge or practicality, even though preparation and education of the population reduce the risk of putting the lives of people, health and property of the population under significant risk. The subjects of the innovative state education program at primary and secondary schools aim to develop students' knowledge about life and health protection. The means for actively solving the problem of crisis situations are cross-subject relationships and using current materials, particularly in geography, biology, chemistry, informatics, mathematics, civics and physical education. These are complemented by the cross-cutting topics of Environmental Education and Protection of Life and Health. It is, in particular, this topic, integrating the attitudes, knowledge and skills of students with a focus on emergencies when staying and moving in nature through three thematic units:
1. emergencies response - civil protection (collective protection, disinfection, decontamination, the ability to behave adequately in the event of emergency events),
2. medical and health preparation
3. motion and stay in nature. Didactic games and exercises with set purposes are used as organizational forms of teaching.

The goals of the paper are the analysis of the option on how to incorporate the topic „Crisis situations“ as an innovative element in geographic education, since this topic has not been given enough attention so far, and the proposal of an innovative element with a specific content and performance standard.
The theoretical basis of the paper is based on the study of various scientific, professional and educational information sources. The practical outputs represent research findings on the current knowledge of selected primary and secondary school students about crisis situations and a proposal for an innovative element - the "Crisis Situations in the Local Country" project. The information we obtained was processed and interpreted using the methods of material analysis, comparison, explanatory description and system method. The research was carried out using an online questionnaire and processed with descriptive statistics of the Excel program, in which graphs were also created. We used diagrams, pictures, word cloud, and tables and graphs for quantitative indicators when visualizing relationships.

The paper thus brings an original perspective on the problem of crisis situations in the educational system and, based on the presented example, provides options for implementing this topic for geography teachers. At the same time, it documents the potentially handy, paradoxically little-used link between school entities and those components of the Ministry of the Interior of the Slovak Republic that coordinate and manages the performance of civil protection.

Keywords:

Crisis situations, biological risks, pandemic, COVID-19, crisis management, innovative educational element.