Nowadays enviromental education becomes an important condition for the formation of a common culture of children, the key to proper development, sustainable health of the growing generation and the safety of their future lives.
Due to the importance of this field of knowledge in 2005-2011, the authors prepared and conducted an experimental study in order to develop and specify a modern approach to the formation of environmental competence (EC) among schoolchildren with hearing impairments, and to create an effective model of their environmental education process. The study involved deaf high school students from three special correctional general education schools for students with hearing impairments in Moscow and Astrakhan.
The study showed that children with severe hearing impairments (12-18 years old) master EC in accordance with the development of their personality. The majority of components of ecological education are successfully comprehended and mastered with the help of various visual aids and methodological findings. The emotional and activity component (competent handling of various substances and materials, careful attitude to nature, understanding the importance of a healthy lifestyle) is comprehended and realized by schoolchildren earnestly during practical exercises, as well as research and project activities. When children use both verbal and sign language, and the rich vocabulary with new constructions proposed by the teacher, the education and learning process becomes more valuable and naturally familiar to them, they appropriate the lesson personally. The project activity helps to reduce feelings of inferiority among adolescents with hearing impairments and helps them gain a positive assessment of life prospects.
In the process of implementing this model of environmental education (for ten years, from 2014 to 2024), it was noted that a systematic approach to the application of the above-described methodological techniques contributes to the high results of the formation of the EC of schoolchildren with hearing impairments. These results are facilitated by the continuity of the educational process, i.e. the inclusion of schoolchildren of different ages in environmental education activities. At the same time, it is advisable to form ecological and scientific ideas in children starting from the age of 8-9.
The success of mastering EC largely depends on the right ways and forms of conducting environmentally oriented practice, during which children gain knowledge about the comprehensive interrelationships of people with the surrounding nature, participate in various practice-oriented interactive activities. We conduct environmental education classes outdoors. Schoolchildren work in specially trained workshops to make birdhouses, including those made from natural materials, and learn how to properly feed wintering birds. The search and development of ecological trails, the study of life of the inhabitants of forest enclosures, as well as walking tours of nearby water bodies arouse great interest among students. In Moscow, such classes are held in so-called specially protected areas, which, for example, include some natural and historical monuments such as Kuskovo and Kuzminki-Lyublino.

The assimilation of EC by students with hearing impairments, their correct understanding of its content and significance attests the following: the creation of a school eco-club, the active participation of children in volunteer environmental campaigns, the successful writing of an International eco-dictation, their confidence during public defenses of their self-prepared project work, and much more. According to our long-term observations, children and adolescents participate with great interest in environmental education activities. At the same time, it should be emphasized that their speech problems and difficulties in verbal communication do not become an obstacle to sincerely sharing their knowledge, experiences, and eco-finds through a variety of visual aids, photographs, drawings, and eco-posters depicting compositions consonant with the beautiful world of the surrounding nature, its creation and protection.

In our work, we relied on the leading theoretical and methodological principles of pedagogical science: • the activity approach (L.S. Vygotsky, P.Ya. Galperin, A.N. Leontiev, D.B. Elkonin) and the principles underlying it – motivation as an incentive source of human actions and behavior (A.N. Leontiev, S.L. Rubinstein) and а personal orientation of learning as a way to realize the independent cognitive activity of students (I.A. Zimnaya); • the main ideas and provisions of the subject–practical activity, which is widely used in teaching children with severe hearing disorders of primary school age (S.A. Zykov, T.S. Zykova, E.N. Marcinovskaya, E.G. Rechitskaya). It has been found that the adoption and assimilation of environmental knowledge by children with hearing impairments is most successful if the education is based on the following well-known and proven principles of both general and special education: 1. the systematic and continuous educational impact achieved with strict control of acquired knowledge, and most importantly, taking into account the age and individual characteristics of students; 2. the unity of intellectual and emotional-volitional activity, the interrelation of knowledge about nature and the social factors of the habitat with the sensory perception of children and adolescents and their aesthetic experiences; 3. compliance with the sign language and pedagogical requirements of the socio-cultural orientation of the education of children with hearing impairments (natural and cultural education of students with hearing impairments); 4. understanding EC as the ability of students to independently transfer and comprehensively apply general educational skills and subject knowledge when designing and performing environmentally oriented actions, as well as when solving and implementing educational (model) socio-problematic situations. And all this with constant monitoring and preservation of children's health and safety for the surrounding life. In the process of developing EQ among students with hearing impairments, we use the whole set of complementary pedagogical methods: the study and generalization of best practices and innovative activities, diverse design methods, and the analysis of creative, research, and design work performed by our students. Long-term observations confirm that the participation of such children in environmental education has a positive effect on their emotional state, increases academic motivation, and reduces anxiety.

From experience of arrangement and performance of ordinary school students’ research and projects we have concluded that in the context of teaching children with hearing impairments to improve their ecological competence the project method has great social and special education significance. A practice of the method is shown in Appendix 1. Based upon collective principles the practice helps children with hearing impairments to get verbal means causes need of communication and transforms cognitive functions activating all kinds of thinking. Being in cooperation students learn to establish logical connections between environmental events and phenomena. As a result of the project completion they develop research, intellectual, and verbal ecologically practical knowledge and skills. Appendix 1 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eR-EtCQPF8gHaF_O2t88C0t0RouRnfw0/view?usp=sharing (https://elibrary.ru/item.asp?id=26517596)

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