Abstract:

The evolution and development of the current society have the biggest influence over the childhood experience and it can affect the growth of the children. In a world, where the school and the curriculum occupy an important place in the cultural, emotional and also competitive development, it is well known that free time or recreative activities have second place in the daily program of each child. In this context, time for outdoor activities is drastically diminishing, a fact which contributes to a sedentary lifestyle and also destroys the connection with the natural environment and its proper understanding. The outdoor education, a holistic educational method, which represents the connection between mind, body, and soul, can be the solution for this current deficit in the education of children. The main objective of this paper is to present a solution for the current education system in Romania, in order to include outdoor education, in the curriculum. This fact can be possible by using the concept of forest school or nature school, which gained more and more ground in recent years. The learning method is based on the children’s direct experience with nature and the environment. For a better understanding of this concept and its proper implementation, it will be presented the systematic rethinking of a space-related with an institution in Iasi, Romania. Taking into account the mission of any school institution, besides education, the present paper aims to present a new vision that will implement nature respect, environment protection, creativity, and civic spirit from small ages. For this reason, the project offers the opportunity to implement these qualities, improve them and use them in the future, and promote and educate children on behave of respect for nature and the environment. The design proposal comes to the aid of education, because it is intended to create a link between the academic environment and nature, creating an intimate and special space from the point of view of volumetry, chromatic range, and texture, which can be enjoyed by children, teachers and also visitors of the site, who can learn the plants secrets. The authors state that by using the concept of outdoor education, the damaging effect of the lack of recreative activities and nature understanding can be significantly reduced and this fact can properly improve the quality of life and also the education.

Keywords:

Recreative activities, holistic education, outdoor education, nature school, environment protection.