Кovchyn Natalia Andriivna, Candidate of pedagogic sciences,

Іnstitute of Pedagogics of the NAPS of Ukraine

Myyslovets Vitalina Ivanivna,

Myyrgorodska gymnasium geography teacher

Formation of holistic scientific geographic picture of the world

in secondary school children’s minds.

Transformations currently taking place in the geographical environment have to be explained by appropriate experts as well they have to have scientific evidence, be systemized and the information received must be transformed into textbook content according to age psychological and intellectual characteristics of school children. All this information is intellectually accessible for scientists, scholars, pedagogues, psychologists in contrast to secondary school children who need this quite complicated information to be collected and structured in such a way that it becomes accessible and clear for them that is taking into account their knowledge level, skills and as well as it must correspond to their intellectual achievements, intellectual development abilities and their personality. Among others cognitive changes at adolescence were studied by G. Craig, J. Piaget, І. Leites .

Intellectual development at adolescence stage has the following characteristics: further development of intellectual abilities that results in greater broadening of imagination, their consciousness, insight and diapason of judgments in general. Cognitive abilities improve rapidly providing accumulation of knowledge in general and the geographical one in particular enriching their life. Cognitive development at this stage is characterized by abstract thinking development and formation and use of cognitive skills which influence greatly on content of their reasoning and broad-mindedness as well as moral thinking ability, reflection. [ І. Leites, J. Piaget]. Therefore, schoolchildren not only generalize information received and perceived step by step at the geography classes, but also identify the place of their personal “self” in all geographical processes

According to Piaget’s conception development of cognitive processes can be defined as a result of constant personal efforts to adapt to environmental changes, the nature, society and the world. Environmental influence either encourages a person to improve, change already formed activity structures if they don’t meet adaption demands any more or if it is needed, form new structures, that is adaption process is realized through two mechanisms: assimilation, that is when a person tries to adapt a new situation to already formed cognitive structures and skills and accommodation - when old schemes of behavior, reasoning, reaction methods are modified to adapt to a new situation. Regarding children cognitive processes development of the third stage is considered to be the most important by J. Piaget. That is formal operational stage : from 11 to12 and further on during adolescence stage formal reasoning is established, grouping of which is a feature of mature and reflective intelligence[Piaget, L.D. Stolyarenko. Pedagogical psychology].

From 11–12 and till 15 years old – a child begins to manipulate ideas in its head, without any dependence on concrete manipulation; they gain the ability to think creatively, in an abstract manner in form of notions, hypotheses, deduction logical rules as well as the ability to combine and classify items in a more sophisticated way, and the capacity for higher-order reasoning.

Therefore, such serious changes in the reasoning development of secondary school children allow to prepare them for teaching more serious material on geography in view of modern dynamic changes in the geo environment. Deduction ability as a method of reasoning from general to concrete, to logical conclusions from some general statements enables secondary school children to update and increase content of geography material .

It has been studied how geography textbook content for 6^th grade upgraded by a teacher, taking into account new geography information, influences education process.Topic of the lesson is «Influence of weather parameters on human well-being and health».After definition of the word «weather» is given by a teacher (state of lower layer of the atmosphere at certain time at certain place), as well as the notion «meteorology» (this science studies mechanism causing weather changes), schoolchildren were offered to learn the following main weather parameters and their characteristics.:

1 – air temperature; 2 – humidity; 3 – atmosphere pressure; 4 – сloud amount; 5 –amount and intensity of rainfall; 6 –direction and intensity of wind. During the lesson a lot of up -to –date information about how weather changes influence on a human being was used and what made the lesson even more interesting and important was the doctor’s information that complemented the lesson. Also, other sources such as scientific magazines, the radio, the tv, the internet, results of scientific study in geography, psychology, medicine were used. Such an approach was extremely interesting to the children who asked a lot of question during and after the lesson.

At the end as a conclusion children were given a creative task– independently using different information sources they had to work out ways of reducing meteosensitivity.

The results of the lesson were the following:

– Weather changes influence different people’s well-being and health differently

– Healthy people experiencing weather changes adapt easily physiologically and intellectually to the environment

However, people whose health is not such good have weak adaptive response therefore their organism is deprived of quick adaptive ability. Influence of weather conditions changes on peoples’ health and well-being is determined by age and individual perception. Psychological readiness and broad - mindedness(holistic geographic picture of the world) help a person to adapt to new geographical and social conditions.

Such a class made the children interested, that is integrative by its nature and is based on children’s abstract reasoning abilities as well as deductive judgments ability. These new facts encourage formation of holistic geographic picture of the world in secondary school children’s minds.

Conclusions: so, contemporary geography textbook, in the secondary school in particular, has to be complemented with information about current changes in the world. Сcontemporary teacher forming children’s interest in the new geography information provides conditions for formation of holistic scientific geographic picture of the world that enables a school child to effectively adapt to globalization changes in the environment.

In the secondary school the following psychological pedagogical study has been done: before the lessons that were worked out and complemented and updated with the latest geographical information to further form a of holistic scientific geographic picture of the world, some tests ( according to methodology of J. Raven and others) and study had been conducted to define level of intellectual development and psycho emotional state.

Similar tests were also conducted after experimental teaching. The results have revealed that according to questionnaires and testing textbooks complemented with teachers’ special work outs children’s performance has become better, what means broadening of geographical picture of the world. Moreover, level of anxiety, and aggression is reduced while children become more tolerant and their intellectual skills and abilities improve (on the basis of the author complex and diagnostic methodology). It proves the efficiency of textbook complement with latest information in order to broaden and form holistic scientific geographic picture of the world in secondary school children’s minds.

Kovchyn Natalia Andriivna

Myyslovets Vitalina Ivanivna

«Psychological basis of formation of holistic scientific geographic picture of the world in secondary school children’s minds under present-day conditions»

The article is devoted, on the one hand, to the issue of new information studying in geography domain as a result of globalization systematic changes in the world, nature, society, as well as preparation of this information for geography textbooks for secondary school children.

On the other hand, the article studies age psychological intellectual characteristics of adolescent children: abstract reasoning formation and other cognitive development features so that taking them into account in the education process form a holistic scientific geographic picture of the world under present-day conditions. The study gives examples of including latest geography information in the education process and its use to make secondary school children interested in subject

Psychological study has shown that in the process of experimental teaching the anxiety and aggression level is reduced and children become more tolerant.