Democratic Education in Nature

<< Background >>Partners wanted to help schools become places where both connection with nature and democracy are not only taught but also actively practised, in order to allow nature schools to familiarise with democratic education and democratic schools to familiarise with outdoor learning. As the experience of the three partners showed, exposure to nature allows mitigating several of the difficulties that democratic schools encounter. Finally, partners wanted to allow traditional schools to familiarise with both pedagogies and learn to use them jointly. DEN project addressed the need of the participating organisations as well as of other democratic and nature schools to systematise this approach (Activity 1) and to create a deeper reflection and a network of exchanges (Activity 2). The project addressed the need of traditional schools to start a transition towards a greener, sustainable way, and to foster active participation and citizenship competences in school by opening the Workshops (Activity 2) to traditional schools, and by producing guidelines (Activity 3) to allow schools that were not yet familiar with our pedagogies to be able to be inspired and to implement them.<< Objectives >>Responding to the needs of offering innovative pedagogical experiences promoting children's environmental stewardship and active citizenship, the project had the ambition to systematise and disseminate a new developing approach that bridges Nature Pedagogy with Democratic Education. Having the partners had a long term experience in this domain, they wanted promote a research on this approach and its application, a series of workshops and guidelines for schools.<< Implementation >>The project was composed of three activities:Activity 1. Research. To explore the status of the art of democratic education in nature, through a countries based analysis and an European comparative study.Activity 2. Workshops: Organization of a series of workshops on the benefits of democratic education in nature and on exchange of practices.Activity 3. Guidelines: A series of guidelines for practitioners, to apply democratic education in nature at the European and national level<< Results >>Tangible results have been the publication of the following documents-Research Report-Workshop proceedings-Guidelines to apply Democratic Education in NatureIntangible results will be:-professionalisation and exchange of competences of school applying Democratic Education in Nature-systematisation of this pedagogical approach-promotion of this pedagogy to traditional schools/ organisations not familiar with this approach yet-promotion of change in education policy development