Abstract:

We are experiencing a form of crisis of respect towards the man’s natural environment, which has been analyzed from different perspectives and, most prominently, it is reflected in man himself. Due to the fact that the reasons for this situations lie deep inside and do not refer only to the economy or politics, but they relate to ethics and anthropology, undertaking efforts of fixing it has to be connected with not only aborting the extreme pursuits of profit and consumption (often defined as the first signs of the culture of rejection), but the pursuit to regard human life and human himself, as the basic values, which have to be respected and protected, confronting the culture of wasting and rejection against spreading the culture of solidarity.

Undertaking the subject of the values and activating methods in environmental education is justified with taking care of human – his/hers integral development, humanity; the meaning of environmental values in human life as well as the whole community; the role of the axiology of environmental education in the face of the exacerbating state of ecosystem, biosystem, and most of all, social system; the need for shaping the system of values among students, and placing within it the environmental values, which will be of great matter in their future social and professional interaction and taking responsibility for the environment. This paper contains the analysis of the problems of the human education axiology connected with the educational goals of a higher school, oriented at the values and activating methods in environmental education.

This paper, according to personal research, depicts the diagnosis of the opinion related to the values and activating methods in environmental education, the perception of the values of such education and their popularity among 800 students at higher vocational state schools in Poland.

In the personal research, the method of diagnostic survey has been applied. The gathering of information about the community was based on its representative sample – the students of pedagogy, the English language, tourism and recreation at 4 out of 36 higher vocational state schools in Poland. As a basic technique of gathering empirical data the research of documents, questionnaire, interview, the scale of environmental values made by the author, as well as the research comparing the levels of consciousness and understanding of the environmental education values of the respondents at the first and third year of Bachelor’s degree. The chosen techniques has unequivocally determined the research tools: a questionnaire, the scale of environmental values and interview questionnaire.

The environmental education values and activating methods highly influences the attitudes and the lifestyle of the students at higher vocational state schools in Poland.

This paper can be the foundation of a number of practical pedagogical implications for the educators and the students themselves in the process of environmental education with the emphasis on the axiology. The elicited results of the research enable to formulate the conclusion directed at educators to assist their students in recognizing, understanding, accepting and implementing environmental values in relation to other people and natural environment, in which we live. Moreover, the conclusion aimed at the students is they should not remain indifferent and passive, but opened to the values and activating methods in environmental education.

Keywords:

The environmental values, activating methods, environmental education.