The activities of Serbian Geographical Society
Two sections were eventually formed in Serbian Geographical Society: Scientific and Teaching section. Within the Science section, scientific work is cultivated in three ways: permanent, periodic or occasional activities.
Permanent work is carried out through regular annual lectures (about a dozen lectures a year) of recognized domestic and foreign scholars, which is later published in Glasnik or in special editions of the Society. So far, over 600 lectures of this kind were held.
Periodic scientific activity of the Society is held annually during the “January days of educators of Serbia.” That is when thematic scientific conferences dedicated to certain geographical problem are being held. Lectures are being held not only by university professors, but also by teachers in primary and secondary schools, as well as other experts in the given field.
Occasional scientific activity of the Society consists in organizing or co-hosting conferences for geographers and related sciences. Serbian Geographical Society was organizer of the III Congress (1930), the IV Congress (1955), the X Congress (1976) and XIV Congress of geographers of Yugoslavia.
Within the Teaching section, Serbian Geographical Society is engaged in educational and pedagogical issues of teaching geography, its position in the school system of Serbia, and education reform. Teaching section of SDS is constantly engaged in the issue of educational and training process. Activities in this field are very large and are held in the form of lectures during the year, the organization of scientific meetings in the methodology of teaching geography. Seminars are thematic, current and relate to the problems of teaching geography from primary to university levels, reform of curricula, modernization of facilities, teaching etc. During the year, the lectures are held in subsidiaries of Serbian Geographical Society. The most notable one, according to its activities, is the Society of geographers of Vojvodina, and their magazine “Gea”.
Serbian Geographical Society, since the first days of existence, nourishes the field work. Up until now, a large number of scientific and professional excursions were realized, and the most remembered are those around Scandinavian countries and the Indian Ocean.
One of the recent activities of the Society is co-organizing the event “Cvijic’s days”, where every year, on the birthday of Jovan Cvijic, meetings of schools from Serbia and the Republika Srpska, which are named after this great Serbian geographer, are being held. So far, the meetings have been in Loznica, Zrenjanin, Belgrade, Smederevo, Banja Luka and Bela Crkva. Schools in Belgrade, Zrenjanin, Smederevo, Loznica, Bela Crkva, Strpce, Zubin Potok, Sirca (Kragujevac), Debrec (Vladimirci), Zminjak (Petlovača), Banja Luka, Brezičani (Serbian Republic) are named after Jovan Cvijic.
In cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Sports of the Republic of Serbia, Serbian Geographical Society is the organizer of “January days of educators of Serbia”, as well as the competitions in Geography at the city, regional and national level.
Friends and associates;
prof dr Benno Werlen
e-mail: benno.werlen@uni-jena.de