The paper aims at analyzing the development of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) active in the field of culture, arts and the protection of cultural and national heritage, and their importance in shaping the cultural functions of rural areas of Poland in the context of their multifunctional development. The research has been conducted in the Kujawsko-Pomorskie voivodship. The data have been obtained from the foundations and associations database published by the Stowarzyszenie Klon/Jawor (the Klon/Jawor Association), from the statistical data published by the Central Statistical Office in Poland, and from the webpages of the analyzed organizations. The information on the NGOs as well as on the cultural institutions located in the rural areas of the Kujawsko-Pomorskie voivodship has been compared. It turns out that the development of the NGOs in rural areas of the Kujawsko-Pomorskie voivodship tends to have constant growth dynamics and that the presence of these organizations significantly increases the accessibility of cultural sector to residents and contributes to economic diversification. NGOs supporting the cultural sector have been developing only since 2000. Therefore, it can be assumed that the existing NGOs network is in its initial stage, but we may expect it will continue to develop. The NGOs are located mainly in urbanized and environmentally valuable areas. Considering the decreasing number of libraries and the types of initiatives undertaken by NGOs in the rural areas of the Kujawsko-Pomorskie voivodship we should state that the emerging NGOs can remedy current deficiencies and provide rural residents with access to culture.

Society aims to develop frames for recognizing important geological and geomorphological sites and features or landscapes within their national and even transnational boundaries. Earth heritage sites educate the general public and preserve cultural and environmental matters. New trends of sustainable development, importance of site conservation are demanding that landforms and landscapes, rocks, minerals, fossils, soils should be protected legally, as they give understanding about the evolution of Mother Earth in local and regional context to generations. The Geopark concept was developed in cooperation with UNESCO and followed a large number of requests to UNESCO from all over the world, from geological institutions and geoscientists and non-governmental organizations, and it became extremely popular and influential to preserve those geological heritage areas, nowadays still recognized only nationally or not at all. This paper aims to give comprehensive overview of existing geoparks in the Baltic Sea Region, as well as analyse aspiring geoparks and unpublished initiatives of potential geopark (Livonia and Vooremaa) eventual establishment in frames of cultural and landscape preservation context. Criteria, requirements and earlier studies are given in context. The geoparks should mainly contain cultural and educational purpose while targeting the least possible damage in preservational aspect.

The purpose of arts education at university is to create students' attitude to five forms of art - literature, drama, dance, music, and visual arts. As a study object, the art an integral part of education and perception of art is the result of cognition of the surrounding environment. A.Dauge (1868-1937) and J.A.Students (1898-1964) observed that arts education is finding out the question of integrity the logically rational and the emotionally experienced in the system of counterbalancing mind and feelings. At the beginning of the 21 century, as the paradigm of education is changing, the opinion also changed about what makes a knowledgeable and socially valuable person. In order to promote the development of one's personality self-fulfilment pedagogues are called for introducing certain changes which are contributing to the opening up of their students. University students are going through the process of evaluation of an interpretation of opera as recorded performance on a video-type and in live performance on the opera house stage. It makes their opinion based on well - grounded argumentation and personally valuable self - evaluation. The last is functioning as the regulating mechanism for learning the properties of arts in the context of developing the human personality. The opera performance on the stage is the live communication with a different culture heritage and people are going to performances to be immersed in art values. Usually the repertoire is hosen for visiting the opera house as an interesting and enjoyable entertainment for students. Such masterpieces as "The Magic Flute" of W.A.Mozart, "Flying Dutchman" by R.Wagner, "Aida" and "La Travolta" by G.Verdi are actually stimulated the students discover of the artwork. Understanding of opera art increases the students' knowledge, emotional experience, interest and positive attitude to high art values. Arts education as intelligent cultural assessment is the dominating purpose of the teaching-learning process.