Abstract:

Achieving sustainable development requires major changes in society as a whole, related to deepening our understanding of environmental issues and increasing engagement to the conservation of nature. An essential moment is the formation of environmental awareness, ecological culture and ecological behavior, which could be done through ecological education.

Ecological education is the most appropriate path to the future, which guarantees a harmonious relationship between man, nature and society. In the process of environmental education, students acquire knowledge about the most common and current environmental problems, as they can be a serious threat to the ecological balance. One of them is associated with a huge amount of waste, the need for sustainable waste management and recovery. For this reason, the topic of sustainable waste management needs to be included in the process of ecological education even at earliest stage.

Aim of the present paper is to present an innovative methodological model of training in sustainable waste management, which is based on the theory of learning by experience and is carried out in the Kolb learning cycle. By this model, the students are involved in the active construction of their own knowledge instead of receiving provided information.

The innovative methodological model includes some problems for active learning by each thematic lessons: Waste definition and classification, Waste treatment, Recycling process, Composting process. For each topic, the planned learning activities and the expected results of the study are described. Worksheets have been developed for each of the lessons to allow for an active approach to student learning. The content of all lessons is structured following the environmental topics, enabling environmental education through a proactive approach.

Each problem is carried out in small groups, after that the results are presented by the team and a group discussion was made. Two questionnaires “My ecological footprint” (pre-test and post-test) are developed to account for the results of the training conducted by the model. More than 300 students of the 11-12 years’ age were involved into the first stage of the innovative methodological model’s approbation. They are studying in six schools from three different settlements in Bulgaria – a big city (Plovdiv), a small town (Kazanluk) and a village (Krumovo). The training was realized by some Bachelors students from the Faculty of Biology at the Plovdiv University “Paisii Hilendarski” (Plovdiv, Bulgaria).

We found a statistically significant increase in the level of knowledge as a result of the training in all studied groups, especially in children from the small town, followed by those from the village (p <0.05). The data show that the training in sustainable waste management have a very high efficiency and the students have significantly increased their environmental competencies.

The model proposed provides opportunities for cooperation and interaction between students in a team organization of cognitive activity, the implementation of active student learning and constructivist design of training, which increase the practical orientation of the acquired knowledge and competences.The students are actively involved in social life, adressing community problems and this will lead to the formation of sustainable environmental behavior, which is essential for nature conservation for both current and future generations.

Keywords:

Kolb learning cycle, active learning, problem-based learning, learning by doing, innovative methodological model