Toxic plants in teaching of biology at secondary schools

This diploma thesis is dedicated to teaching botany, and is focused namely on lessons concerning toxic plants. The first part deals with creating of worksheets for secondary school students for field trip into Botanic Garden of Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague. The second part compares effectiveness of classical lesson and the field trip. Students of the first grades from four secondary schools (grammar schools) were divided into two groups.The first group was taught by classic conventional teaching in classroom (control group) and the second group (experimental) was taken for the field trip to the Botanic Garden of Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague. The effectiveness of education was measured by means of a knowledge test before the lesson (pre-test) and after it (post-test). Level of knowledge increased in experimental groups and control groups, however, the difference between individual groups was not significant. Key words: toxic plants, botanical garden, field trips, worksheets, knowledge testing