2019

LVM Educational Programmes Celebrate the End of the School Year

With the school year coming to its end, the achievements of school students can finally be celebrated. Participants of JSC “Latvia's State Forests” (LVM) education programmes, schools of the Mother Nature (Mammadaba) Embassy, which have become Mother Nature Master Schools, as well as the finalists of the LVM Forest Game deserve praise for their accomplishments by learning and drawing inspiration in nature.

During this school year, almost 4 000 children from 129 Latvian pre-school educational institutions were educated in the Pigman's Directives (Cūkmena detektīvi) programme. In the feedback questionnaire, teachers of the pre-school group of Mētriena Primary School wrote: “Several hikes in the forest teach you to draw your own conclusions about changes in nature taking place throughout the year.” The programme provides an opportunity to go out and learn from nature.

More than 4 000 primary school students completed the Mother Nature Master Class (Mammadaba meistarklase) this year. In the school year 2018/2019 they accomplished at least three tasks: went into nature to acquire the usual learning content in nature and in forest, made their own wooden masterpieces, and went on forest cognitive excursions to LVM sites to acquire forest knowledge together with forest industry professionals, or visiting forest industry's partners and exploring forests, wood products and their widespread use.

Already for the third year, LVM invites 6th grade students to participate in the LVM Forest Expedition. More than 6000 students from Latvian regions participated in the expeditions organised this autumn. For the entire school year, 6th grade students had an opportunity to head for Latvia's State Forest Expedition to visit three permanent LVM tourism sites: Latvia's State Forests Nature Park in Tērvete, LVM Kalsnava Arboretum and the cone drying facility in Vijciems, by individually coordinating the expedition time in the information centres of these facilities.

In turn, in the LVM Forest Game 7th-9th grade students made teams to create an outdoor learning game about the forest, including topics relevant to the school curriculum. Learning game video tutorials were judged by a jury and users of social portals voting for their favourite game. As a result, ten teams met face-to-face and demonstrated their knowledge in Latvia's State Forests Nature Park in Tērvete, where within the framework of the Latvian Forest Days, the Forest Game final competitions took place. In fierce competition, the title of champion this year was awarded to Irlava Primary School team, who will go on a summer expedition to the Austrian mountains and forests.

For the third year, secondary school students had the opportunity to prove their knowledge in the field of bioeconomy and to participate in the LVM Bioeconomy School scholarship competition. Students created posters about what the bioeconomy is and made video messages in honour of the UN International Forest Day. Ieva Siksaliete from Daugavpils State Gymnasium won the 1st place and LVM scholarship in the amount of 700 euros. In addition to the high nominations, supporters of the competition - forest industry companies JSC “Latvijas Finieris”, SIA “Rīgas Meži” and association “Zaļās mājas” - offered their scholarships.

  Open gallery 

Closing events at Mother Nature Embassies

At the end of the school year, the flags of the Mother Nature Embassy were lowered to be now stored in schools. This year these four schools carried the title of Mother Nature Embassy: Sigulda Primary School No. 1, Talsi Primary School, Ciecere Special Boarding School and Jūrmala Primary School “Atvase”. These schools had the opportunity to explore the forest more widely: students went on LVM Forest Expeditions, watched birds together with ornithologists of the Latvian Bird Fund, explored the forest industry during career days and learned much more about forests and the forest industry in many different ways. On the last day of school LVM four regional forest management and planning managers - Jānis Zitāns from Zemgale Region, Vilmārs Katkovskis from Rietumvidzeme Region, Dace Gītmane from Dienvidkurzeme Region and Andris Verners from Ziemeļkurzeme Region - solemnly thanked the schools for their cooperation during the school year and presented certificates of recognition to the school directors.

Four schools have been nominated as Mother Nature Embassies for the school year 2019/2020:

Now summer has arrived, students are enjoying their holidays and teachers have time to acquire new things. Very soon - from 1 July to 4 July, the 14th European Forest Pedagogics Congress will take place in Latvia for the very fist time. It will be attended by 98 forest education specialists from 18 different countries around the world. The conference will also include 12-hour (A) continuing education courses for teachers. At the end of July, teachers are invited to a 36-hour (A) continuing education course at Ezernieki Tourism and Recreation Centre, where this year's special guest lecturer will be Prof. Gunter Pauli from Belgium.

Based on more than ten years of experience in working with schools, and following the recommendations of the National Centre for Education and internationally recognised forest pedagogy practices, LVM has developed its Forest Management Guidelines for general education schools in Latvia. These guidelines provide for a regular improvement and development of the school programmes.