Forest - our lifelong teacher

With the project ForLife we wanted to train and empower teachers with the needed knowledge about forests in relation to climate change. We wanted to internationalize the positive experience and to...

With the project ForLife we wanted to train and empower teachers with the needed knowledge about forests in relation to climate change. We wanted to internationalize the positive experience and to exchange examples of good practice of ESD among partners and to obtain further guidelines and materials for the implementation of ESD into the entire school curriculum, as we believe this field is crucial for creating our youth’s positive attitude towards nature in present and future time. We wanted the involved teachers to feel empowered and self-confident to teach in the chosen field at the end of the project and to incorporate the principles of forest pedagogy into their work. Through the project activities, we wanted to emphasise the importance of education for sustainable development, including the goals of sustainable development in the work, and to emphasise the importance of educating young people about climate change. We want the newly created materials, ideas and activities to spread even after the end of the project, to educate as many teachers as possible in the chosen field who work with young people and care about our future.

As part of the project, we hold the international mobilities in all three partner countries for the teachers involved, where they received lectures by experts on various topics related to the forest and climate change. We facilitated visits to individual institutions, where teachers observed and participated in activities with students. We also carried out field work and practical activities on educational sustainable development, where teachers could gain lots of new knowledge. Teachers exchanged examples of good practice with each other. We held an online international conference where the participants presented examples of good practices; we also enriched the meeting with lectures by experts (scientist from NASA, from the GLOBE program, head of forest pedagogy), which was the important component of the project. Participating teachers have prepared various educational and didactic materials that are freely accessible.

The most important result of the project is empowered and self-confident teachers who will transfer the newly acquired knowledge in the field of forests (in connection with education for sustainable development, climate change and the importance of nature conservation) to their work and spread it further among colleagues and students. A collection of examples of good practices was created (proceedings of the international conference and teachers' presentations - everything is freely accessible) and a collection of educational materials and didactic materials. An important result of our project is also the interest of teachers who were not involved in the project and its activities and their desire for knowledge and the use of the resulting materials. The project was presented at the European conference Schools go green and digital (May, Bonn) and at the international conference Pedagogy for change (October, online) and at the good practices market for contractors of Erasmus projects in Slovenia.