Theme of this graduate thesis are large carnivores of national parks of Europe. The thesis consists of two parts - a theoretical part and a research. In theoretical part, the term national park is defined and its fundamental characteristics, history of their making is emphasized, thus are the problems of national parks of Europe. Fundamental biological and ecological features of large carnivores are described, causes of endangerment are displayed which are the reason that large carnivores are on the Red list and the current status of protection of large carnivores is also displayed. The thesis points out their importance to nature, their impact on pray and coexistence of humans and large carnivores, with retention to examples in two national parks in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Goal of this thesis is to point out the importance of protection and preservation of large carnivores and to determine cognition of fourth grade pupils about large carnivores and national parks which are a part of their living space. Every national park, because of its unique beauty and biodiversity, as well as large carnivores, which are an important integral component of biodiversity, represent to pupils an interesting, fun and instructive content which preoccupies their attention, inspire them and encourages them to work. The research was conducted with the help of a teaching sheet which checked pupil's prior knowledge and the pupils were introduced to listed protected species and the area in which they inhabit. Test results of pupil's prior knowledge show that a great percentage of pupils are familiar with listed contents and that pupils have sufficient knowledge about national parks, prevalence of large carnivores and biology and ecology of large carnivores. Test results also showed that the boys are more familiar and have more knowledge about examined topic compared to girls, it has also been established that pupils that visited some of Croatian national parks have answered questions with more success compared to pupils that did not.