STUDENTS’ DESIGN ACTIVITY AS A MEANS OF FORMING ECOLOGICAL AND AESTHETIC COMPETENCES

The article clarified the need for the formation of pupils’ and student youth’s technological artistic and project competence based on the modern vision of reforming national education in the context of the world and European civilization trends in the development of society (increasing the intellectual potential of nations, all-round development of the individual as the highest value of society and avoiding environmental hazards and disasters caused by military actions). The study aimed to choose the multifaceted nature of the formation of future technology teachers’ ecological and aesthetic competencies by studying and systematizing aspects of national experience, summarizing the theoretical ideas and practices of leading design specialists, opportunities for design education, and design activities of future specialists. The support of the scientific position regarding the fact that the means and methods of design activity can be used to protect nature from the standpoint of cultural values, to fight for the environmental cleanliness of construction and processing materials, to improve the condition of the subject environment of many spheres of people’s lives, led to the selection of design education tools for the educational discipline «Fundamentals of Landscape Design», proposed for future teachers of the educational field «Technology» to study. These means include awareness of the socially significant functions of design, knowledge of socially essential tasks of design activity, the structure of future technology teachers' ecological and aesthetic competencies based on design education, and ways to increase student youth’s ecological and aesthetic competencies in design activities together with the teacher. From the perspective of the research, the need to use the national characteristics of Ukrainian people’s culture in the educational process of secondary education, their ideas about the aesthetics of nature and man, and the ability to aesthetically improve the living environment by means of design are determined.