THE ROLE OF FOREST PEDAGOGY IN EDUCATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL UPBRINGING

Abstract

Today an important issue for educators today is to give students the opportunity to learn about the natural world around them during their school studies. We believe that students should be made aware of science knowledge and environmentally conscious thinking from an early age. Thus, we have decided to write the present study with all these factors in mind. In the final year, we developed a teaching aid that combined the two forest pedagogy approaches. The first part of it consists of worksheets that we created based on our own ideas and that are closely related to the 6th and 7th grade curriculum. The second part of the teaching aid includes in-class and extracurricular activities that are aligned with the units of Kovátsné Németh Mária’s (2010) Forest and Nature module, while the methods used are based on the work of Franz Lohri and Astrid Schweyter. The developed worksheets and activities focus on presenting the wildlife and values of the Atak found in my local environment. Keywords: Forestpedagogy, environmental education, direct experience, extensive use of experience-based teaching methods