engleski

Contribution of the Croatian national TV Channel 2 in promotion of geological heritage - "Kratki spoj" and “ Nulti sat” educational shows

Croatian TV (formely TV Zagreb) has long tradition in production of educational programmes. In 1960-es and 1970-es, it broadcasted TV-school program which was tuned with primary-school curricula, and teachers were encouraged to use the program as a supplementary teaching tool. During the last ten years the concept of educational programe has significantly changed, and combined educational topics with amusement, but the production did not die out. The promotion of geological heritage is a frequent topic of the Croatian TV Channel 2 (HRT 2) educational program, the “ Kratki spoj” ("Short-circuit") and “ Nulti sat” (“ Null-hour” ) shows in particular, which are emited every Monday morning and replayed in the early afternoon. The target audience are school-children, their teachers and parents. However, the real audience is much wider, and comprises wide spectrum of age-groups as well as professions, totaling several hundreds of thousands of wievers. Both shows have started already several years ago, and with some changes in terms of duration and schedule will continue also in the future. The shows last for ca. 15 minutes, and comprise parts which are made in studio and parts prepared on a location, being it a field, a museum, or an institute lab. The show creators regularly contact university professors and other scientists to comment on various science topics, or to provide educational and fun contributions on various issues. The “ Short-circuit" is a recorded show with two young hosts, and a guest from the world of science, whereas the “ Null-hour” ia a studio live show, with one host and a guest scientist. The show hosts act as moderators and discuss the topics with the guest scientist. The scientists are preferably young, so than children can identify with them. The ideas for individual topics are sometimes proposed by the editor-in-charge, and sometimes emerge in discussions with the scientists. The flexibility of the TV media makes it easy to combine the topics filmed in the field, with live comments by scientists in the studio, as well as with contributions filmed in the research laboratories and/or museums. Just over the last year various topics were treated, such as: origin of the Earth, meteorites and comets, impact cratering and craters, plate tectonics, earthquakes, volcanoes, fossils, dinosaurs, karst, water, fossil forest, geoheritage protection, etc. When appropriate, a hands-on activity, or experiment, is also demonstrated, with the help of ProGEO-Croatia student volonteers. Geology and geological heritage are frequent topics in both shows, and shown hands-on experiments are designed with the aim to get the school-children and their teachers involved in study and conservation of the geological heritage. Most recent example was the “ Short-circuit" show dedicated to the fossil forest which was discovered in early spring of 2007 at the outskirts of the Zagreb city, and was broadcasted on October 15th 2007. The show combined a visit to the Geology Department of the Faculty of Science to provide information on the fossil types of wood and coals, then a visit to the fossil forest site to document the find and discuss on its importance, a visit to nearby excavation site with fossil leafs, a visit to the radiocarbon dating laboratory of the Rugjer Bosković Institute to explain and illustrate radiometric dating methods, and finally to the lab with demonstration of preparation of leaf replicas which mimic plant fossils.

education; television; geology; geoheritage

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