Currently, elementary education teachers and tutors in Slovakia express massive interest in collaboration with forest pedagogues. This collaboration focuses on fulfilling educational standards and ...meeting educational objectives tight to the topics of the forest environment. These are mainly the topics from the subjects of Human and nature, Human and society, Human and the world of labour. The object of the research was teachers' opinions on collaboration with forest pedagogues and the impact of forest pedagogy on the educational process.
The development of topics related to the idea of sustainable development, ecology and the climate crisis is increasingly supported by Polish educators, psychologists and therapists. At the same time, ...forest kindergartens as well as various grassroots initiatives based on the methodology of outdoor education are developing in Poland. The long-term achievements of practitioners - most often employees of the State Forests - for whom the forest education of the society has been one of the priorities since the early 1990s, deserves special appreciation (Wierzbicka and Czołnik 2022). In 2021, Forest Pedagogy was initiated in Poland as an interdisciplinary problem area, aspiring to a scientific sub-discipline (Paluch and Klimski 2022). The first contacts between foresters and educators gave rise to the question: Can the forest become a real “pedagogical medium” (Rykowski 2022), understood as an educational environment? What became clear was the problem of the similarity of the forest monoculture (management forests dominating in Poland) to the educational monoculture of the school and academic classroom system. Each monoculture is created with the view of matching the production demand for relatively identical objects – on the one hand, these can be trees “for boards”, but on the other hand, young people subjected to a systemic process of “labour force allocation” (Parsons 1969), serving the development of consumer attitudes. In both cases, the goal is to accelerate production, artificially stimulated competition, preventing the attainment of full maturity, or replicating an unambiguous and one-dimensional picture of the world. A symbolic illustration of the last phenomenon are the findings of a qualitative pilot study in which two groups of students completing a Forest Pedagogy course were asked to design a forest kindergarten. As it turned out, the respondents most often drew ordered elements of the urban playground infrastructure: swings, slides and sandboxes, in the vicinity of the building of the local kindergarten, which dominated the drawing. What is particularly poignant, in the analysed drawings the forest was only a symbolic background.
This paper evaluates the impact of the forest environment on aggressive manifestations in adolescents. A remedial educative programme was performed with 68 teenagers from institutions with substitute ...social care with diagnoses F 30.0 (affective disorders) and F 91.0 (family-related behavioural disorders), aged 12–16 years. Adolescents observed patterns of prosocial behaviour in forest animals (wolves, wild boars, deer, bees, ants, squirrels and birds), based on the fact that processes and interactions in nature are analogous to proceedings and bonds in human society. The methodology is based on qualitative and quantitative research. Projective tests (Rorschach Test, Hand Test, Thematic Apperception Test) were used as a diagnostic tool for aggressive manifestations before and after forest therapies based on Shinrin-yoku, wilderness therapy, observational learning and forest pedagogy. Probands underwent 16 therapies lasting for two hours each. The experimental intervention has a statistically significant effect on the decreased final values relating to psychopathology, irritability, restlessness, emotional instability, egocentrism, relativity, and negativism. Forest animals demonstrated to these adolescents ways of communication, cooperation, adaptability, and care for others, i.e., characteristics without which no community can work.
Sensory analysis is unusual in sustainability research, although it can offer a neoteric aspect of nature and wild animals’ perception. The study’s objective was to identify consumers’ attitudes ...towards plant and animal products from wild and conventional foods and put these findings into a broader social context. A blind sensory evaluation with 80 semi-trained assessors was used, segmented by gender, age, education, income, place of origin, family status, number of children, and willingness to pay. Wild boar (Sus scrofa) was chosen as an example of an overpopulated animal species occurring in the wild, which could be considered a partial substitute for pork. Statistical testing in these blind evaluations proved that wild boar meat is not considered less tasty. Therefore, wild boar meat could represent a partial substitute, complementing pork, on which consumers are willing to spend the same amount of money. Despite the mostly indifferent sensory evaluation, focus group responses showed considerable barriers to wild food. This paper concludes that possible educational and popularizing procedures are presented, including forest pedagogy, eliminating consumers’ prejudices. A mixed-methods approach within quantitative and qualitative methodology was chosen.
People think very little about the consequences of consumer and ecological manners. Responsibility for raising children to sustainable behaviour is transmitted to educational institutions that bear ...the full weight of this burden. Non-teaching experts such as foresters enter the educational process. These specialists are called “forest educators”. At the 14th European Forest Pedagogics Congress 2019 in Latvia, 167 forest educators from Europe met, and 52 of them were willing to participate in a qualitative research survey. This paper aimed to identify why foresters, as people without pedagogical education and despite the unfavourable funding, become educators. The following questions guided this research: What leads them to start organizing educational and adventure programmes for children and the public? Is their intrinsic motivation based on an unconscious level to implement ideas of Deep Ecology? Philosophy of Arne Naess and semi-structured interviews with forest educators in the form of the Pyramid Model of Wengraf, through which qualitative data were obtained, methodologically approached this paper. Interviews with foresters revealed their values, needs, motivation, dominant psychological-ethical moments and prosocial behaviour that brings inner satisfaction and pedagogical activity as an added value of their profession. Forest educators have a unique philosophical system related to nature and the environment. They subconsciously follow and develop the ideas of Deep Ecology through the methods of Forest Pedagogy. The paper presents the way of involving forest educators into the distance and online teaching due to the Coronavirus pandemic, as well as the topic for further research in this area.
Schools in many countries implement environmental education to different extents. School as an institution has a significant role in shaping pupil's attitudes and behaviour towards nature and the ...environment. School's cooperation with a forest pedagogue is oriented towards the activities of forest pedagogy, the application of which to education in the conditions of Slovak schools represents one of the possibilities of forming pupils' relationship with nature and awareness of forestry. The aim of the research is to find out and show the possibilities of improving the cooperation of forest pedagogue and teacher so that the activities of the forest pedagogy lead to the formation of pupils' relationship with nature and their awareness of the functioning of the forest ecosystem. The main method of data collection is interviews with teachers and forest educators. The results show that the cooperation of experts - teacher and forest pedagogue can significantly improve the application of forest pedagogy methods and thus increase the quality of achieving the goals of forest pedagogy.
Arne Næss considered nature the best source of knowledge and regarded the economists as morally responsible for the ecological crisis. Therefore, this research focused on students of economic fields ...at the university level. The experimental group (n = 236) led by a teacher-as-researcher completed a Business Economic course by forest workshops for one semester because the sustainability principles can be very well explained and observed on examples of forest fauna and flora and then applied in managerial practice. Many similarities were found between forest and business principles (optimal growth rate, teamwork, cooperation models, parasitism). This paper aimed to identify if students’ proficiency in applying sustainable mindset from a forest ecosystem to practice increased. The achievement test compared outcomes of the experimental and control group (n = 190) of students. Based on statistical testing, it can be stated that the experimental intervention led to better results compared to the control group. For issues in which no suitable parallel with the forest ecosystem was found and were therefore explained according to the textbook, group (E) did not perform better than group (C). The methodology is based on qualitative and quantitative research, a mixed-methods approach.
In the current society, the topic of global environmental problems that people face in their everyday lives is becoming more frequent. The consumption lifestyle of people has a negative impact on the ...environment, which causes reduced quality of life on Earth. One of the most important tasks of education is leading children toward sustainable living. The study is focused on a specific pedagogical-didactical approach - Forest pedagogy as one of the options for environmental education as well as building a relationship towards sustainable development in the primary level of education. Forest pedagogy is focused on teaching about the forest ecosystem and children forming a positive relationship towards the protection of the environment on examples tied to the forest. Forest pedagogy introduces programs that are realized by forest pedagogues at school within formal education based on the condition set by the Slovak Republic. These programs lead towards the education of environmental thinking and a positive approach of a child towards the environment. The study features partial outcomes of the research on how the programs of forest pedagogy influence the development of children's knowledge about forests and their protection.
Foresters face new and evolving challenges as society reconsiders the balance of its interests between wood production and the provision of ecosystem services in the management of forests. Whatever ...paths this process may take, sound and broad-based decisions will continue to require accurate and relevant measurements of current forest conditions and projections of future conditions under alternative management programs. Forest measurements and biometrics (FMB) will remain a key component of future forest management and a critical element in the education of future forest managers. As professors who both teach and do research in FMB, we offer teaching goals that we believe will improve FMB education in forestry schools to meet future needs. In this article, we outline teaching goals for university-level instruction in forest resources curricula and the roles of FMB in modern forestry. We then identify what we feel are the most critical challenges in teaching and learning FMB and discuss selected strategies to meet teaching objectives for FMB. A fourth section presents an overview of how selected strategies can be integrated into FMB classes, including examples and comments on the role that new technology might play in meeting the aforementioned challenges. The final section summarizes our main points and provides concluding remarks.
Best Practices in Slovak Forestry Communication - Case study Marušáková, Ľudmila (National Forest Centre - Institute for Forest Consulting and Education Zvolen, Sokolská 22, SK - 960 52 Zvolen)
Central European forestry journal,
01/2009, Volume:
55, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The paper deals with question of forestry communication and explains what role communicative processes play in positive perception of forestry sector. Necessity of active communication, Communication ...Strategy and the most significant tools of communication are introduced in the study. The best practice examples of forestry communication with public in Slovakia are briefly mentioned. Forest related Environmental Education (Forest Pedagogics) is introduced as an example of effective way for informing the public about sustainable forest management and increasing awareness about importance of forests for environment and society. Slovak Forestry Days presented in the paper are the greatest event prepared by coalition of forestry institution for broad public in Slovakia. Model of management of communication process and main actors involved are introduced in the paper as a tool for strengthening effective and proactive forest inter-sectoral communication.
Príspevok sa zaoberá otázkou lesníckej komunikácie a zdôvodňuje akú úlohu zohrávajú komunika _né procesy pri vytváraní pozitívneho vnímania lesníctva verejnosťou. V príspevku sú _alej uvedené dôvody pre nevyhnutnosť aktívnej komunikácie, potreba vytvárania komunika _ných stratégií a sú predstavené najvýznamnejšie komunika _né nástroje v lesníctve. Sú prezentované úspešné príklady projektov zameraných na komunikáciu s verejnosťou na Slovensku. Lesná pedagogika - lesnícky zameraná environmentálna výchova je v príspevku predstavená ako jedna z najefektívnejších spôsobov ako informovať verejnosť o trvalo udržateľnom lesnom hospodárstve a nástroj na zvyšovanie povedomia o dôležitosti a význame lesov pre spolo _nosť. Jeden z najúspešnejších komunika _ných projektov je celoslovenské podujatie Lesnícke dni, ktoré zabezpe _uje pre širokú verejnosť partnerský tím lesníckych organizácií. V príspevku je predstavený aj model manažmentu lesníckej komunikácie vrátane jej hlavných aktérov, ktorého aplikácia zabezpe _í posilnenie efektívnej a proaktívnej medzisektorálnej komunikácie v lesníctve.
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