2019

LVM is Developing a New Curriculum Called "School Forest"

Forest is the best classroom! On 17 September, JSC “Latvia's State Forests” (LVM), in cooperation with Jelgava Spīdola State Gymnasium, solemnly opened work on the development of a new curriculum called “School Forest”.

Almost 60 school students from the eighth and tenth environmental classes, the school management, as well as representatives of Jelgava City Council, the National Centre for Education and LVM participated in the launch of the new curriculum.

“Already since spring, we have been making plans for practical learning. Therefore, this school year, teachers will organize various activities for students in forests - they will plan routes in nature and develop study games that can be introduced here in the forest. “School Forest” is an opportunity to show that what young people learn at school can also be seen in nature. What we see in a school microscope can be seen here in reality. All the formulas are taken from nature,” tells Ilze Vilkārse, the director of the gymnasium.

The first task of the students in launching the new “School Forest” training programme was to plant a pine forest together with Jānis Zitāns, LVM Zemgale Region Planning Manager. “The reforestation work was done successfully. It was evident that the students had come to the forest with a sense of duty that this is their school's forest, where they will come back to see and study how their own planted young tree stand grows and changes,” says Jānis Zitāns.

As the day progressed, the students went on to study in nature. The eighth grade students learned mathematics and sports, combining an element of athletics with measuring trees and making certain calculations. Only after completing the tasks did the students understand the nature of woodworking and agreed that such lessons in forest should be organized more often because they are more interesting than sitting in a school bench and the knowledge gained is more practical and easier to perceive.

“I would like to have such lessons every day. I really enjoyed walking in the forest, breathing the fresh air. As a child, I had a dream to work in a forest-related profession, and today I had the opportunity to look at what it would be like. I recommend that all schools introduce such lessons in the forest,” Elza, an eighth grade student, shares her impressions about the day.

Tenth grade students, on the other hand, looked at the forest and the world of colours through a microscope, exploring plant particles found in the forest and creating a colour palette of plants from the forest environment. Sharing their impressions about the tasks, the students said that they were surprised by the diversity of plants and mushrooms to be found in the forest.

“Any two or three school subjects can be linked, proving that a school subject is not limited to a specific frame and that everything in life is interconnected,” says science and biology teacher and methodological coordinator of the “School Forest” programme Agija Lāce pointing out that the new curriculum has been included in the mainstream education process. “In the tenth grade, in their biology and physics classes, students should take the first steps into research: identify the problem to be researched, hypothesize, experiment, and draw conclusions. Usually in school work we use already available research materials, which are quite limited in number, but here in the forest, one can get a diversity of plants as needed. We want to show this to our students,” Agija Lāce adds.

At the end of the event, Līga Abizāre, Head of the LVM School Programme, shared her satisfaction with the new initiative: “It is a pleasure that Jelgava Spīdola State Gymnasium has accepted the challenge of going to nature every month. The cooperation agreement between the school and LVM stipulates that the experience gained at the end of the school year is summarized in the teaching material, which would inspire other schools to integrate the forest study content.”

The idea of the “School Forest” curriculum is based on the practice in Scandinavian countries, where outdoor learning in forests has been a part of mainstream schooling for more than 40 years. The “School Forest” programme involves the conclusion of a contract between the school and the forest owner for the implementation of educational activities in a particular forest area that is within easy reach of the school and has a maximum diversity of natural conditions. Students have the opportunity to participate in the forest management processes of a particular forest, as well as to create the necessary infrastructure for education in the marked area. Teachers, on the other hand, receive methodological support material to help them implement nature learning.