New dimension of education
The Tatra National Park every year attracts crowds of tourists both from the country and from abroad. It is numbered among the mostly visited parks in Poland, because of variety of possible activities, easy access, unique landscape and varied environment. Taking into consideration a large number of tourists walking on the mountain trails and undoubtedly being a thread to sensitive and prone to any changes nature, the Tatra National Park puts emphasis on education of the hiking lovers. The project “Home of Nature, People’s Park- the Sustainable Use of the Tatras Ecosystems through Ecological Eucation” is established with a view to rebuild the currently existing Natural Museum into a modern, unconventional and functional Nature Education Centre.
Thanks to its innovation and attractiveness it will attract and encourage tourists to visiting, broadening the knowledge about the Tatra National Park, learning the proper behaviour on the trails and raising environmental awareness. The innovative Centre will enable direct interaction between participant and the phenomenon, experiencing and discovering new dimensions of nature. As a result, the tourists setting off on the mountain trails will be educated, aware, inspired and negating any attitudes leading to environmental degradation.
The aim of the project is to get through with educational offer to as many people as possible, to bring up the social awareness concerning biodiversity of Tatra ecosystems and collective responsibility for environmental protection of the Tatra National Park as well as forming of positive standards both by strangers and by local inhabitants.
It is directed especially to people living in direct neighbourhood of the Tatra National Park including schoolchildren, teachers of natural sciences, licensed mountain guides, local government, administrators of hotel facilities, local travel agencies and the hauliers working in the district. Among addresses of the project should also be tourists visiting the Tatra National Park in large numbers of about three million a year, as well as representatives of other polish national parks, academy institutions, executives, educationists of schools in whole country and other education authorities.
Planned activities
The activities in the context of the project promotion have been split into four meetings organization. The first opening conference will take place the second of June in the Nature Education Centre of Tatra National Park. It is intended to present the assumptions and schedule of the planned works in detail, specifying the goals, identifying the target groups, presenting the expected results of the campaign and also gaining support from the Financial Mechanism. The subjects connected with the informal, active natural education and unconventional teaching methods will be also present at the meeting.
After technical project launching, there will be courses concerning the using the Centre infrastructure (May 2015). Those activities will be directed above all to the Tatra National Park staff members who are engaged in realization of particular project stages, Tatra guides and natural sciences teachers from Podhale area.
The third meeting is planned for June 2016. It is connected with opening of new rebuilt Nature Education Centre. The conference will concern preceding stages of the project realization and the resulting products as well as presentation it's innovation and functionality.
The fourth and last conference is planned for October 2016. It will complete the project and will be a great opportunity to sum up all activities connected with it, to present the effects, results, change and progress and also to stress the importance of the mission and difficulty by implementation of the undertaking.
The summing-up will be also great opportunity to mark out the next goals and to outline the future activities connected with the work of Nature Education Centre.
