Environmental protection education for lower secondary school students through fine art activities in school eductional curriculum

45 HNUE JOURNAL OF SCIENCE Educational Sciences, 2020, Volume 64, Issue 4B pp. 45-50 This paper is available online at ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION EDUCATION FOR LOWER SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS THROUGH FINE ART ACTIVITIES IN SCHOOL EDUCTIONAL CURRICULUM Nguyen Thi Hong Tham Faculty of Arts, Hanoi National University of Education Abstract. Enhancing environmental protection for lower secondary school students is an important work in the context of many environmental pollution issues which have been directly affecting nature and people. The content of environmental education has been included in the curriculum in high schools to educate students to be responsible for the living environment and have possibility to protect the environment. Fine Art in high school is one of the subjects that is capable of integrating the content of environmental protection education for students, helping students improve their responsibility and take practical actions to protect the environment. Researching theoretical issues about integrating environmental protection education in Fine Art activities such as goal, content, principles, integrated methods will help educators effectively implement educational goal of environmental protection for students in the school. Keywords: environmental protection education, students, Fine Art, lower secondary school. 1. Introduction Environmental protection is an urgent issue that is being paid much attention worldwide when there are increasingly continuous environmental incidents affecting life such as climate change, air pollution, water pollution, plastic waste pollution and so on. There are many causes of environmental pollution, but the main cause is improper human awareness, leading to environmentally damaging behaviors. Environmental knowledge, the right attitude about the environment and capability to more effectively protect the environment is an urgent issue in the current period. Vietnam has paid attention to environmental education and sustainable development through the “National Plan for Environment and Sustainable Development 1991-2000”, the Law on Environmental Protection Education that was passed by the National Assembly in 1993 and Decision No. 1363/QĐ-TTg of the Government to approve the environmental education project in 2001 of the Ministry of Education and Training to add environmental topics in the national education system. Environmental protection education for lower secondary school in particular and the youth in general is very important because they are the future owners of the country. Environmental protection education is often integrated in subjects and extra-curricular activities, after-school education for students in secondary schools. Also Fine Art in lower secondary school is the subject which is integrable with the content of environmental protection. Therefore, students will be interested in creating creative and practically applicable art products which contributes to raising responsibility for environmental protection. Received April 11, 2020. Revised April 24, 2020. Accepted May 15, 2020. Contact: Nguyen Thi Hong Tham, e-mail address: thamkhoa@gmail.com Nguyen Thi Hong Tham 46 2. Content 2.1. Fine Art’s integrability with environmental protection in lower secondary school In lower secondary schools, Fine Art provides students with general, basic, and fundamental knowledge of the visual art. Through Fine Art learning process, aesthetic ability of students is improved, and thus helps them understand the beauty of art works and nature. Furthermore, the subject help students to apply it’s knowledge into daily life and study. [1, p.9-p.10]. The basic knowledge is about the beauty of art languages such as lines, shapes, colors and rhythms. Thereby, students can create art works, which is suitable to their abilities with help from teachers. The subject helps students to develop creative thinking, observation ability and reasoning ability. Through Fine Art, students gain more understanding of the natural environment, realize the richness and diversity of animals and plants. Thus, makes them more responsible to surrounding nature. Many paintings about environmental protection, posters (topic about environment is suggested), countryside landscape are included in the curriculum of Fine Art. Apart from the main activities, there are also extra-curricular activities such as sightseeing, outdoor painting; aesthetic competitions which attract students to be actively involved in. This is also an opportunity to integrate the content of environmental protection into education. Teachers can guide and encourage students to create art products related to environmental protection. Recycled products are made of waste materials to become useful products in study and life; thereby students are trained rational use of learning materials. Therefore, Fine Art in lower secondary school is completely capable of integrating environmental protection education for students. Education content about environmental protection can be integrated in subjects such as painting, decorative painting in the main lessons and extra- curricular activities of Fine Art. Through the process of studying Fine Art, students can see and understand the beauty of nature, and preserve, live in harmony with it. Environmental protection education for lower secondary school students brings about multiple benefits because the content of environmental protection education is formal, systematic, effective and training methods are flexible. Environmental protection education helps students acquire the knowledge; skills and identify the duties and responsibilities of citizens to the environment. Students who receive environmental protection education will gain knowledge about the natural environment; know the relationship between people and the natural environment; figure out actions that have a negative impact on the environment, and actions that positively impact on the environment; act to protect the environment in accordance with the capacity; propaganda and mobilize other people to participate in environmental protection. Students are conscious, responsible, ready to protect environment. The objectives of environmental protection education for lower secondary school students through Fine Art comprise: • Knowledge: - Through Fine Art lessons, students will be able to identify elements of nature (such as soil, river, sea, mountains, forests and so on), identify natural phenomena of the environment (wind, rain, storms, floods and so on) from observing nature to create Fine Art products. Furthermore, students can list some typical types of environmental pollution (water pollution, air pollution, food contaminant, noise pollution and so on). They can also identify the names of actions to protect, maintain biodiversity and ecological balance (building protected areas, caring and preserving rare species ...) • Skills (Students will be able to): - Practice personal hygiene, use economically and effectively all kinds of Fine Art school supplies such as paper, paints, pens. - Apply the shaping elements and principles to create Fine Art products that contribute to environmental protection: painting about environmental protection, drawing environmental Environmental protection education for lower secondary school students through fine art activities 47 protection posters, decorating classrooms, schools, and so on - Select and use waste materials to create a number of practical Fine Art products. - Propaganda the message of environmental protection through some Fine Art products. • Attitude: - Be close to nature, behave friendly to environment, be responsible for protecting the natural environment, and obey the regulations on environmental protection. - Self-voluntarily carry out activities on saving, recycling materials in learning Fine Art and in life. - Willing to participate in activities in the school and the local community to protect the environment. - Willing to share experiences about environmental protection, environmental protection messages through Fine Art products. [2, p.161-p.163] 2.2. Contents of environmental protection education for lower secondary school students through Fine Art - Our environment Guide students to learn about the components of the environment such as air, soil, water, rivers, seas, mountains, forests; list some typical pollution types (water pollution, soil pollution, air pollution and so on), identify negative actions to the maintenance of biodiversity and ecological balance; identify the causes of various types of environmental pollution and identify environmental protection actions With right awareness about the environment, students will have appropriate behaviors to contribute to environmental protection through Fine Art activities such as: preserving, economical and effective use of materials and consumer goods (using saving paper and some school supplies in Fine Art), taking appropriate actions in preserving environmental protection at schools and localities (recycling and reusing used appliances, forming Fine Art products with high practical applicability, creating Fine Art products with propaganda messages about environmental protection for the community, performing personal hygiene and keeping learning environment and residence clean. - Reasonable use and protection of natural resources Identify ways to classify resources, name the types of resources. Reasonable use of natural resources, applied design, communication panels on the rational use and protection of local natural resources. - Preventing, combating and overcoming environmental pollution Identify the manifestations of the polluted environmental status (air pollution, water pollution, soil pollution, noise pollution and so on). Identify measures to prevent and combat environmental pollution, classify waste and propose some simple ways to recycle waste. Design posters and panels to communicate about prevention of environmental pollution - Preventing, mitigating natural disasters and adapting to climate change Identify types of weather and climate in geographical areas, different seasons, identify some types of natural disasters that often occur in Vietnam, and relate to local reality. Designing posters and panels to inform disaster prevention measures and reduce risks of natural disasters and measures to cope with climate change. This content is integrated into lessons and extracurricular activities to help students create Fine Art products that contribute to environmental protection. Students will know how to choose, use and combine some recycled materials in practice- practicing creating Fine Art products that are highly applicable in life. Using products to propagate environmental protection, display, introduce and share with people the message of environmental protection through products. In addition, students need to be instructed on the economical and effective use of school supplies in Fine Art such as drawing paper, Nguyen Thi Hong Tham 48 powder color, watercolor, crayon, pencil ... Know how to keep the classroom clean after each Fine Art class: do not drop shredded paper, materials, and so on in the classroom. Do not use color, glue, and tape on tables, walls and boards. 2.3. Principles of integrating environmental protection education for secondary school students through Fine Art activities in schools When integrating the contents of environmental protection education through Fine Art at secondary schools, the following principles must be ensured: - Do not make denaturation and change the content of the subject; do not transform the lesson of Fine Art into a lesson in environmental protection education. - Use the contents of environmental protection selectively, it is necessary to focus on using the contents of environmental protection in accordance with each grade and class, avoiding spreading and arbitrary. - Promote the activities, cognitive activities of students; let them have most opportunities to practice via games when playing in the school yard, joining picnics, painting, competing to create art products from scrap materials... - Help students feel comfortably in Fine Art activities to avoid formal and constrained activities. 2.4. Integrated method of environmental protection education through Fine Art Contents of environmental protection education are integrated in Fine Art through formal and extra-curricular programs. Fine Art not only brings about useful knowledge but also helps students understand more about environmental protection and thereforeenable them to protect the environment in accordance with their age. On the other hand, the integration of content of environmental protection also increases the practicality, effectiveness of education, and increases the applicability of the subject to practical life. Integration is implemented with 3 levels: Overall level, part level, and relevance. a. Overall level: The objectives and content of the lesson or topic match perfectly with the objectives and content of environmental protection education. b. Part level: Only one part of the lesson has objectives and contents of environmental protection education. c. Relevance: The lesson has some contents that are related to the content of environmental protection. Teachers need to use reasonably, ,avoid making the lesson constrained [3, p.15-p.17]. Besides integrating this content into the mainstream curriculum, extracurricular activities play a very important role because through the extra-curricular hours, the students were conveyed to the basic, practical issues on environmental protection such as: air pollution, white pollution, preventive measures, pollution prevention methods, health protection methods for themselves, practical actions on environmental protection in localities ... Consequently, these extracurricular activities raise the sense of responsibility, build a sense of citizens on environmental protection; at the same time multiply country pride, homeland love. Therefore, extracurricular activities can integrate environmental protection content through Fine Art. Some specific activities are: - Sightseeing: Discovering craft villages, historical sites, famous landscapes and so on to integrate environmental pollution issues in craft villages and environmental protection in famous landscapes. - Competition: drawing pictures about environmental protection, designing posters about environmental protection, creating art products from waste materials, decorating the classroom environment with recycled materials, and so on. - Painting, creating decorative art for green, clean and beautiful spaces, cleaning the local living environment, participating environmental campaigns and propaganda campaigns at schools and localities... Environmental protection education for lower secondary school students through fine art activities 49 2.5. Methods and techniques of integrated teaching environmental protection education in Fine Art at lower secondary schools Fine Art teaching method is the way teachers work in directing and organizing learning activities to help students actively achieve teaching goals. Current teaching methods are very diverse. Each method has its own advantages, so teachers must be able to flexibly combine traditional and modern methods and techniques. Therefore, there are opportunities that encourage students to participate. Also, there is an environment for learning activities (classroom atmosphere, teacher-student relationship) in order to promote positive and creativeness of learners, develop proper attitude and attitude to the issues about environmental protection. The educational methods in Fine Art should promote learners' activeness, self-discipline, initiative and creativity, in which the following requirements must be emphasized: - Integrate theoretical content with practice and discussion; combine the knowledge and skills of Fine Art with the knowledge, skills of other subjects and educational activities in an appropriate and practical manner. - Focus on teaching experience; flexibly apply teaching methods, techniques and organizational forms, learning spaces to mobilize knowledge, experience, stimulate imagination, think aesthetic images of students, create opportunities for students to apply knowledge, skills into practice, experience creative ideas and bring creative products to life. - Properly exploit and use teaching equipment and the Internet; take advantage of locally available materials and materials. In order to educate students about environmental protection through Fine Art activities, teachers can exploit locally available recycled materials and natural materials for students to practice creating Fine Art products or students' Fine Art products is associated with practical local environmental protection issues [4, p83-p88]. - Help students develop aesthetic feelings about themselves and the surrounding world, art love and life love by organizing many activities such as discussion, practice, experience, creative competition teachers. Consequently, students’ awareness is improved including family; homeland love and affection among people; the sense of environmental protection; the sense of cultural space protection; respectful attitude to art products and works; pride in national cultural traditions; and a sense of respect for the cultural diversity of ethnic minorities. At the same time, students are trained to have diligent, honest characteristic, love labor and have sense of responsibility of using and preserving teaching equipment. Those activities also stimulate excitement and encourage confidence in learning and participating art activities; thereby students will contribute to building and developing the aesthetic life of individuals and communities. Some teaching methods and techniques in mainstream curriculum include: visual method, illustrative method, practice-preparation method, group teaching method, and problem-solving method. Technology of questioning, tablecloth technique, mind map, and so on [5, p33-p58]. For extracurricular activities, the Arts should focus on organizing creative experience activities for students with diverse forms such as clubs, games, tours, picnics, contests / contests... Teaching methods to organize creative experience activities include: problem-solving method, role-playing method, group work and project method. 3. Conclusions Integrating environmental education in Fine Art activities at secondary schools is to integrate environmental education objectives and content into formal and extracurricular activities in a systematic way based on exploiting the advantages of other activities in Fine Art such as painting about environmental protection, drawing posters about environmental protection, creating toy products, utensils, art products, and so on from waste materials, organizing art creative contests Nguyen Thi Hong Tham 50 for the environment, sightseeing, experience and so on. The integration of environmental education into current Fine Art activities should base on the approach of students' competence, the approach of organizing educational activities to make students interested in the subject. Students are proactively and actively take part in learning activities to acquire knowledge. The requirements of products, materials for practice should be paid attention so that those materials are appropriate to the student's ability, local practical conditions an