2015

JSC "Latvian State Forests" debuts first eco-program for kids

In order to educate the younger generation on the importance of clean forests and to increase their environmental awareness, JSC "Latvian State Forests" (LVM) has created the first eco-program for kindergartens, titled "Pigman's Detectives". As part of the program, pre-school children, 4 to 7 years old, together with teachers, are called on to reveal various forest secrets and to become detectives. This spring, ten Latvian kindergartens will launch a pilot project, but this fall, the program will be available to all kindergartens.

The essence of the eco-program consists of four themes, according to which children will perform specific investigative steps or tasks to assess what is good and what is bad in the forest, featuring games, dances, songs, stories, various visualizations, and Pigman's dolls, etc. Each theme has been devised following the principle – See, Hear, Listen, Act –, at the same time observing the involvement of children and participation in playtime.

"We will invite the kids, together with their teachers, to explore the dirty (read: trashed) secrets of the forest, follow in my footsteps, and reveal the conduct of “human swine” in state forests, read stories, play Pigman's Circus, perform Pigman's special dance featuring Pigman's songs, learn Pigman's alphabet, as well as plant trees and learn where oxygen comes from," says Pigman, an advocate of clean forests and chief of the "Pigman's Detectives", who makes sure on a daily bases that Latvian state forests are litter-free.

"Pigman's Detectives" was created as part of LVM's social campaign "Don't Litter In The Forest!".  “Appealing to residents to protect Latvia's treasure – our forests – and to not litter wherever they please, together with Pigman, we addressed both students and grown-ups. However, it is important to teach understanding of the importance of clean forests, as well as environmental awareness, already in childhood. For this reason, as part of LVM's clean forest campaign, we have created the first eco-program for kids – pre-school children, urging them to become Pigman's assistants or detectives in the battle against litter in Latvian state forests," the head of LVM's Communications Department Tomass Kotovics states.

This spring – in March and April – ten Latvian kindergartens will launch the "Pigman's Detectives" pilot project, where teachers, together with the kids, will explore the program's materials and reveal mysteries of the forest in four activities, afterwards providing an assessment of the program. Meanwhile, already this fall and at the beginning of the new semester, the program will become available to all kindergartens everywhere.