Raising territorial awareness of the students from Gorzów Wielkopolski county (Poland) as part of geographical and historical education

Abstract

This article contains selected results of research on the course of geographical regional education and the territorial awareness of pupils in Gorzów county (Western Poland), a region situated on the border with Germany (the Land of Brandenburg). The paper defines the basic concepts and terms, and describes a research tool. Students' knowledge about their own region, the source of this knowledge and the means of its acquisition were set as outcomes. The state of territorial awareness of pupils including its spatial extent and the nature and strength of ties were established. While analyzing the results, the authors highlighted the differences between the declared attitudes of the students of each school, differentiating them due to the stage of education (middle school and high school) and the place (Gorzów Wielkopolski, Kostrzyn nad Odrą and Witnica). It was found, that lessons on regional issues implemented within geography lessons and educational trail such as Regional education – cultural heritage in the region (Edukacja regionalna – dziedzictwo kulturowe w regionie) play an important role and contribute significantly to the mastery of complex knowledge about the region. Beside the formal education about the region a family home is of great importance, especially in terms of shaping forces of territorial ties. Deficiencies in terms of regional education were also highlighted. Due to the nature of this article and its small size authors focuses only on the selected parts of research, in particular the analysis of the diversity of geographical and historical knowledge resources of the surveyed students was omitted.