Educational workshops in The Northern Subregion schools.

What is the best age to start environmental education? Everyone. Dominika Bukalak-Gaik, The Eco-manager of the Northern Subregion of the Silesian Voivodeship argued about the importance of environmental awareness during a series of educational workshops conducted for children and youth from Lelów and Poczesna Communes.

Workshops were conducted:

October 18 – 19, 2022 - Educational eco-workshops "Why is the blue sky so important?" for students of the Primary School and children (3-6 years old) from the Preschool Department in Ślęzany (Lelów Commune),

October 26 - 27, 2022 - Educational eco-workshops "We all want to live under the blue sky" for students of the Primary School and children (3-6 years old) from the Preschool Department in Słowik (Poczesna Commune)

November 7, 2022 - Educational eco-workshops "We have blue skies when we care for clean air" for children (3-6 years old) from the Kindergarten in Lelów,

November 8, 2022 - Educational eco-workshops "Sky under which we want to live is blue" for students of the Primary School and children (3-6 years old) from the Preschool Department in Podlesie (Lelów Commune),

November 15, 2022 - Educational eco-workshops "Blue sky is our common cause" for children (3-6 years old) from the Kindergarten in Nakło (Lelów Commune),

November 23-25, 2022 - Educational eco-workshops "Smog our enemy! Disappear! Dont’t come back!" for students of the Primary School in Poczesna.

Eco-manager used various methods of transferring knowledge. The youngest pupils learned about the problem of air pollution by having fun. On a specially prepared model of globe, children placed the sources of air pollution and actions that should be taken to improve air quality. One part of workshops for the youngest children was creating a picture story "About the Sick House". The workshop ended with coloring the coloring books prepared by Eco-manager.

The Eco-manager conducted brainstorming sessions with older students, creating mind maps concerning the origin and effects of air pollution. Students also tried their hand at creating ecological slogans and information posters on selected topics:

1. Encouraging people to keep the air clean.
2. Health effects of poor air quality.
3. Harmfulness of old, inefficient boilers and encouragement to replace them with new ecological one.
4. Prohibition of incineration of waste.
5. Air quality monitoring and behavior during a smog alarm.
6. Good habits in environmental protection.
7. Promoting renewable energy sources.

An interesting element of the workshops were the experiments that showed how flue gases generated in home boilers spread and how they affect on our health. During the experiment, all children and students unanimously stated that they wanted to breathe only clean air.

All workshops conducted by Dominika Bukalak-Gaik were published in official calendar of the 30th anniversary of the LIFE Programme.