Forest - our lifelong teacher

<< Background >>The impacts of climate change are happening now. These impacts go far beyond rising temperatures and affect ecosystems and communities around the world.We are aware that it is important to provide quality education to young generations in the field of environmental protection and to bring them closer to the importance of nature conservation. Here we saw an opportunity to highlight an area that certainly connects all of the above - forests. Forests are able to stabilize the climate, regulate ecosystems, protect biotic diversity... they help promote sustainable growth. When choosing a topic, we followed current topics and relied on studies conducted in the EU. The document Sustainable Europe by 2030 states that the inclusion of young people in all areas is crucial. And that is why, in this case, education for sustainable development, which also encourages the inclusion of sustainable development goals, is crucial.Based on the data obtained after the analysis carried out in Slovenia, Serbia and Italy, we found that teachers want more quality training in the field of forests, learning about their functions, forest conservation and the inclusion of forest pedagogy. We need properly educated teachers.<< Objectives >>With the project ForLife we wanted to train and empower teachers with the needed knowledge about forests in relation to climate change. We wanted to internationalize the positive experience and to exchange examples of good practice of ESD among partners and to obtain further guidelines and materials for the implementation of ESD into the entire school curriculum, as we believe this field is crucial for creating our youth’s positive attitude towards nature in present and future time. We wanted the involved teachers to feel empowered and self-confident to teach in the chosen field at the end of the project and to incorporate the principles of forest pedagogy into their work. Through the project activities, we wanted to emphasise the importance of education for sustainable development, including the goals of sustainable development in the work, and to emphasise the importance of educating young people about climate change. We want the newly created materials, ideas and activities to spread even after the end of the project, to educate as many teachers as possible in the chosen field who work with young people and care about our future.<< Implementation >>As part of the project, we hold the international mobilities in all three partner countries for the teachers involved, where they received lectures by experts on various topics related to the forest and climate change. We facilitated visits to individual institutions, where teachers observed and participated in activities with students. We also carried out field work and practical activities on educational sustainable development, where teachers could gain lots of new knowledge. Teachers exchanged examples of good practice with each other. We held an online international conference where the participants presented examples of good practices; we also enriched the meeting with lectures by experts (scientist from NASA, from the GLOBE program, head of forest pedagogy), which was the important component of the project. Participating teachers have prepared various educational and didactic materials that are freely accessible.<< Results >>The most important result of the project is empowered and self-confident teachers who will transfer the newly acquired knowledge in the field of forests (in connection with education for sustainable development, climate change and the importance of nature conservation) to their work and spread it further among colleagues and students.A collection of examples of good practices was created (proceedings of the international conference and teachers' presentations - everything is freely accessible) and a collection of educational materials and didactic materials.An important result of our project is also the interest of teachers who were not involved in the project and its activities and their desire for knowledge and the use of the resulting materials.The project was presented at the European conference Schools go green and digital (May, Bonn) and at the international conference Pedagogy for change (October, online) and at the good practices market for contractors of Erasmus projects in Slovenia.