Abstract:

Forest pedagogy in many countries is a part of environmental education, it is primarily focused on supporting and accepting the use of sustainable forest management. It focuses on all aspects of sustainability – social, environmental and economic. The paper aims at the methodical grasp of forest pedagogy in the conditions of pre-primary and primary education. In particular, it presents forest pedagogy programs, experiential activities, their implementation possibilities through organizational forms, methods and teaching aids, which are applied by forest pedagogues in Slovakia. A forest pedagogue is a professional that is qualified to carry out forest pedagogy activities. He/she is a forester who graduated from the accredited Forest Education program. The research part brings findings from the conducted research in pedagogical practice. The goal of the research is to point out the individual benefits of forest pedagogy for school pedagogy if a forest pedagogue comes to school to teach topics about the forest environment. We demonstrate the differences through the results in the experimental and control groups.

Acknowledgement:
This research is carried out at the Pedagogical Faculty of the Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, the co-researcher is the National Forestry Center in Zvolen and is supported by the Research and Development Agency, based on the project APVV-18-0484 – Forest pedagogy and education for sustainable development in pre-primary and primary education.

Keywords:

Forest pedagogy, sustainable development, primary education.