Samoocena jakości edukacji ekologicznej w organizacjach i instytucjach w Polsce

The main aim of this research is to describe the current state of informal environmental education in several selected organizations and institutions in Poland. This work accommodates a tool for testing the quality of environmental education developed by the Swiss Foundation for Environmental Education and SILVIVA Foundation consisting of two checklists and a manual. The quality improvement criteria presented in the tool cover 150 indicators. This tool allows for a detailed self−assessment of the organization and the course of its environmental education. The checklists and instruction manual were sent to 67 people from various organizations. 18 people from 15 organizations and institutions dealing with informal environmental education took part in the survey (27% return rate). Research covered selected entities engaged in informal education: the State Forests, municipal forests, national parks, landscape park and Forest Research Institute. The selected centers from all over the country have various infrastructural background, and represent different organizational forms, sources of funding and educational programs. These centers offer a wide range of methods, not only traditional teaching methods like lectures, but also interactive ones. The respondents provided good and very good assessments in areas relating to ‘choice and quality of content’, ‘implementation’ and ‘portfolio of offers’, while the lowest assessments was granted to ‘reflections and quality awareness’, ‘assessment of offers and services and further development’ and ‘evaluation of education’. A lack of useful feedback from the participants was reported.