Abstract:

Forests are important ecosystems that are threatened and often degraded due to anthropogenic activities and climate change. On the global scale, Slovenia is considered as one of the areas that is severely affected by climate change. Forests cover 58% of Slovenia. In the recent years, extreme weather events have become more frequent and intense, resulting in ice-breaks, windthrows, forest fires, subsequent bark beetle attacks and other natural disasters that have significantly altered forest structure and dynamics. These events resulted in extensive forest damage that could threaten the continuous provision of forest ecosystem services and development of future forests in Slovenia.

School children are one of the key target groups in forestry’s response to climate change, as their opinions and perceptions will drive forest management in the future. Climate change and its effects on forest ecosystems are an important issue that should be presented to children in a positive way that promotes a proactive attitude towards mitigation and adaptation. Forestry and education experts should avoid inducing “environmental melancholia” and present climate change with methods that are appealing to youth, make them aware and equip them with knowledge for responsible decision making. To achieve this, we use the tool of Forest pedagogy, an approach to environmental education that promotes the forest as a healthy and innovative outdoor learning environment and uses active pedagogical methods to promote cooperation between children and impart knowledge about sustainable development and environment protection.

We do this as a dedicated group of researchers from the Slovenian Forestry Institute under the name Forest of Experiments, working in the field of environmental education, knowledge transfer and science promotion. Within the Forest of Experiments at Slovenian Forestry Institute and the project LIFE SySTEMiC: “Close to nature forest management under climate change”, we aim to better understand the attitudes of school children about forests and climate change. To improve our future activities on this topic, we conducted a workshop for primary school children at the traditional Plant Fascination Day 2023 in Ljubljana, organized by the Slovenian Society of Plant Biology and EPSO. The workshop, attended by 268 children from 17 classes and 11 Slovenian primary schools, consisted of:
• a brief interactive presentation about forests and climate change,
• group work (using post-it notes and posters) to express their answers to the questions: “How are the forests changing?” and “How can we help them?”,
• group discussion to reflect on the answers.

To analyse the results, the children’s inputs were categorised into different categories. When asked “How are the forests changing?”, the most common answers were: forest pests and diseases, natural disasters, climate change, cutting/harvesting of trees, time, human activity, deforestation, etc. When asked “How can we help forests?”, the most common answers were: stopping pollution, planting trees, recycling, to stop cutting/harvesting trees, activism and volunteering, respecting forest etiquette, etc.

In our contribution, the children’s attitudes are further analysed and discussed. Previous research has shown that outdoor experience with a mentor is a strong predictor of how environmentally aware and involved a child will become as an adult. Further activities, contributions, and research are needed in this matter.

Keywords:

Forests, Climate change, School children, Slovenia, Environmental education, Forest pedagogy, Slovenian Forestry Institute, Forest of Experiments, LIFE SySTEMiC.