In modern pedagogy, special attention is paid to environmental education and the education of students. But the key problem of working in this direction is the need for a qualitative impact on the interests and motivation of students, which requires other means and methods of teaching. Therefore, the purpose of the study was to analyze the effectiveness of using an elective course to increase the interest and motivation of 9^th grade students to explore the environment. To achieve it, a number of methods of scientific cognition were used: they were the analysis and synthesis of scientific and methodological literature on the research topic. Within the framework of the article, it was determined that the issues of interest and motivation are one of the key ones in modern pedagogical practice, and many teachers pay attention to them. This is due to the fact that it depends on the level of interest, on the level of motivation, how effectively students will learn the material and, more importantly, how effectively students' independent activities in mastering certain subjects at school will proceed. In order to determine the effectiveness of elective courses, an experiment was conducted in which the level of interest and motivation was measured before and after the elective course. The results showed a positive effect of the elective course on the level of interest and motivation of 9^th grade students to explore the environment both as part of the development of the school curriculum and as part of independent work.