News

Almost 12 thousand Students will go to Nature as Part of the Forest Master Class

A new record number of participants has been reached in the environmental education programme for primary schools “Forest Master Class” announced by JSC “Latvia's State Forests” (LVM). This school year, 11 922 students from 218 schools in Latvia will participate in it, and teachers from natural science or environmental education groups will help students learn about the forest.

“The largest number of participants applied from schools in Riga – more than 70 classes. Schools from Vidzeme region were also very active with almost 90 classes taking part in the project.​ At the same time, all regions and major cities are also represented in the Forest Master Class, which shows that forest education and the desire to learn in nature is very strong throughout Latvia. The number of participants has grown significantly, so this year we have hired an assistant for the master class – Pigman, who will help us deliver the special master class map and other inspiration materials to the schools,” says Līga Abizāre, LVM Environmental Education Manager.  

During the academic year, the participants will have to complete one of the master works: an outdoor master class, a wooden master stroke or a forest master day. Schools that indicated on their application form that they wanted to grow their own trees will receive pine or spruce seeds and planting instructions in March. Also, at the beginning of each month, participants of the Forest Master Class will receive suggestions on how to get to know the forest in depth within the respective month.

We encourage everyone to be inspired by the students by jointly implementing one of the tasks of the master class participants:

• Watch birds and draw stickers on the theme “With birds in the forest”. The best drawings can be submitted to the Forest sticker competition; the deadline for submitting works is 30 November;
• Explore the trees in the school yard with the Tree Passport or study in nature according with the help of other LVM environmental information materials;
• Pick acorns to grow oaks later! The instruction is available here: Growing an oak tree;
• If you did not manage to participate in the forest expeditions for 6th graders in September, we invite you to plan your own hike in October using the Forest Exploration Backpack, which can be adapted to different age groups, or to go on other educational excursions offered by LVM according to your interests;
• Grade 8 – 9 students together with teachers can conduct research in the forest, participating in research competitions, and become real Foresters. The main prize is a forest expedition in Sweden.

Since 2005, LVM has been implementing a wide range of environmental education programmes in cooperation with the State Education Content Centre and the European Forest Pedagogy Association, encouraging schools to learn in nature and grow together.​ LVM school programmes support education guided by the “School 2030” competencies, aimed at achieving the UN's sustainable development goals.