ENVIRONMENT AND OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH COURSE FOR SECONDARY SCHOOL AS AN EXAMPLE FOR ENLARGED SCIENCE TEACHING

One of the problems of Latvian educational system is teaching students to take care of their health themselves in the view of their professional career. It is necessary to choose a profession that is not only interesting, but also correspond to the person's state of health. The factors of a harmful job can create a risk to the person's health. In Latvia young people actually aren't acquainted with the problems and harmful professional factors which can arise in the professional life in the future. This is why it is so important to include the course of Environment and occupational health in the secondary school teaching programs. The results of the students' questionnaire indicated their knowledge of professional health being incomplete. Individual discussions with students have shown that students don't pay much attention to the issue of work environment of their future profession and that their attitude to the problem is not serious. At the same time it was ascertained that the state of health of a number of students may restrict their professional choice. It was worked out the course Environment and occupational health and analysed a possibility of including the topics of the course in other science subjects such as biology, chemistry and physics. Such a course is a good example for enlarged science education at Upper secondary school level that makes science education more attractive.