Natural and antropogenic landscapes as a component of knowledge about environment

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to discover ways and opportunity to familiarize students with natural and anthropogenic landscapes in the process of studying geography at school.
The main material. The article emphasizes the need for geographic education not focusing on the accumulation of little related multilateral knowledge. It reveals the importance of forming a holistic outlook and a comprehensive understanding of nature and the biosphere, as part of nature and environment of human existence. It emphasizes the essential role of knowledge about natural and manmade landscapes, which helps to solve problems of human-nature relationship, giving the possibility to understand natural processes and peculiarities of anthropogenic influence on them. Economic activities in Kharkiv region have led to the formation of various man-made landscapes within the natural landscapes:
agricultural, residential, industrial, transport, aquatic, forest. Within the agricultural landscape there is soil degradation, flooding, salinity, erosion, landslides, deflation. In the limits of residential landscapes (urban and rural) relief, microclimate, soils and water objects change, domestic and industrial wastes are formed. Quarries, dumps, road construction, trimming slopes, laying links, piers, reducing the area of forests- all this leads to a negative impact on the composition of soils, groundwater, migration and reproduction of plants and animals. The environment, protective function of forests, biodiversity and the state of the natural landscapes are damaged.
Conclusions and further research. Knowledge about anthropogenic transformation of natural landscapes will ensure imagination of the world’s unity, understanding the consequences of negative human influence on the constituent environments, as well as the formation of a responsible approach to cognitive and practical activity of students in the study of geography.