INTEGRATION OF PUPILS’ AND TEACHERS’ NATURAL SCIENCE EDUCATION

School is given an important and responsible task to form the pupils' world outlook at the present level of life and science requirements. General programmes particularly emphasize education, aimed at developing scientific thinking and cognitive abilities, based on pupils' research activities. Because so far the pupils' environmental research activities are nationally successfully developed only in the non–formal education system, comprising the insignificant part of children and youth, it is necessary to look for the ways to speed up the changes in formal education system. The article analyses the experience of two Lithuanian towns – Kėdainiai and Šiauliai – implementing integrated events for the country's teachers and pupils. The organisers of both events – national integrated conference for teachers and pupils “Nature and I” in Kėdainiai and national practical conference–seminar “Natural research in the 1st – 6th grades of a secondary school” in Šiauliai – have a common objective – to make pupils' natural science education process in formal education system more active and effective. With the aim of attaining that, pupils are encouraged to develop environmental research activities in formal education system and teachers are provided with the conditions for the development of their natural science competencies. There is a slight difference between the ways of implementing the same objective. In Kėdainiai more attention is paid to senior age pupils, and in Šiauliai – for junior age pupils (7–12 years of age). In Kėdaniai integrated conference is organised. At the conference pupils and teachers work in separate sections and present separate papers. At the same time the teachers listen to the lecture. Conference papers are edited and printed in a separate publication. In Šiauliai a practical conference – seminar for teachers and pupils is organised. Communication in the first part of the seminar takes place by Internet, and the methodical publication, consisting of the descriptions of separate school researches, is prepared. In Kėdainiai the articles are prepared by pupils, consulted by teachers; in Šiauliai – by teachers, consulted by pupils and compilers. The Šiauliai publication integrates two ideas: first, it is a methodical teaching aids that is convenient for the teacher's use; second, the publication is written in a language that is understandable to a pupil and can be used as an additional source of information in formal natural science education process. The second part of the seminar takes the form of a conference, where pupils and teachers read combined papers, providing a broader and more colourful presentation of the performed research, answer the questions, and explain the peculiarities of research organisation. After the conference all methodical materials are announced on the Internet website and is available to all country's teachers and pupils. Kėdainiai working group is responsible for the publication of the methodical materials on Internet.