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JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
Personal involvement of the teacher beyond his or her
responsibilities;
The teacher's relationship to environmental education,
forestry, forest, forester's work;
Teacher's erudition in the field of environmental education,
knowledge of natural processes of the forest environment;
The willingness and ability of the forest pedagogue “to
adapt to children`s level of the mental maturity and their
height.“;
Training of the lecturer, his erudition in pedagogical
procedures, appropriately chosen forms of education;
Supportive family environment of children (children go to
nature with their parents from an early age, parents build
children's relationship to responsible behavior towards
nature);
Defining the negative factors draws our attention to possible
threats and problems in the implementation of non-formal pre-
primary education of children in environmental education in the
forest environment. The participants defined that the most
factors with a negative impact on this education are in the area of
External Factors - 9, but none of the factors can be considered as
a key factor. The experts defined the most key negative factors
again for the field of Environmental Education - methods and
forms. These factors are:
Formality, the use of monotonous "lecture" forms;
Lack of critical thinking when selecting activities ("pseudo
environmental activities");
Education based on instructioning, without examples of
real activities (children imitate the behavior of adults) in a
real environment.
They also mentioned other, less significant factors that have a
negative impact on the informal pre-primary education of
children from environmental education in the forest
environment:
Lack of qualified lecturers focusing on environmental
education;
Forest teachers and EE workers are available only for
limited amount of time (restrictions by the employer);
The focus is on formal education;
Teachers' interest in knowledge from the forest, which may
not correspond to publicly presented facts, and a
willingness to apply it and communicate it to children;
Negative relationship patterns towards nature in the family,
inappropriate upbringing in the family and the absence of
developing responsibility for one's own behavior and
actions;
Accessibility of the forest environment to the kindergarten
(it is far from the forest, there is no forest environment near
the kindergarten).
Regarding the mentioned results, it is important to state that the
factors formulated in the initial phase were not so clear in the
later decision-making of the participants. Some were
categorized, very clearly defined, others included a number of
related factors. Therefore, it is possible that such factors had
greater strength in the final evaluation. During the second round,
one expert was concerned about the unclear formulation of the
factor. Clearly, precision plays an important role in the initial
specification of factors. To clarify, we declare that for maximum
authenticity, we altered the formulation of factors to the least
extent. It was found out during the research that experts did not
perceive the differences between formal and non-formal
education, or did not consider them to be important. Therefore,
those that may not be directly related to informal environmental
education and training have also emerged in the group of factors,
e.g. lack of teachers in kindergarten, or enough or lack of
teaching aids.
2.6 Research conclusions and recommendations
The use of the Delphi method in the expert determination of
factors influencing non-formal pre-primary education, which
takes place in a forest environment, is of great importance for
pre-school children. This approach to environmental education
provides children with a direct personal experience through the
senses and contact with nature. It was found out out that children
have the opportunity to get to know the nature through activity
and experience, specifically the forest environment, which
supports their emotional development (mostly emotions of joy -
from movement, overcoming obstacles, from the sounds of
nature), psychomotor development (movement in uneven natural
terrain, overcoming obstacles in nature environment, which
requires jumping, walking on tiptoes, finding balance, etc.).
They learn to name and describe the observed natural
phenomena and in the end develop their creativity. Experts also
indicated that the attractiveness of the forest environment with
the possibility of direct observation of various objects such as
feeder, tree stand, nest or anthill, plays an important role in this
type of education,. These are some of the peculiarities that make
the forest environment unique. Experts indicated that we do not
need supporting teaching aids and modern digital technologies in
this education. It must be said that the teacher himself has a
crucial role in this process with his didactic skills, personal
involvement, often beyond work responsibilities and his positive
attitude towards environmental education, forest, perhaps also
forestry and the work of a forester. Similar requirements apply
also to the lecturer of environmental education from the external
environment. On the other hand, as the results of the research
revealed, for the success and effectiveness of environmental
education, it is necessary to avoid teachers`s formality
and a lack
of critical thinking when selecting activities. There is also no
place for education based on instructions, without examples of
real activities in a real environment. This reaffirms the need to
illustrate subject matters in the real environment
It has to be reminded that the degree of risk from the point of
view of environmental education educators, specifically forest
pedagogy, is the insufficient number of qualified lecturers, the
amount of time they can devote to these activities and certain
restrictions on the part of the employer for the implementation of
activities. Other factors that have emerged, could be certain
restrictions on visiting the forest because of logging or other
forestry activities. When entering the forest, it is necessary to
think about increased safety of children, in terms of cleanliness
of the environment, for example in the form of garbage or the
lack of infrastructure in the forest for rest. However, experts did
not consider this aspect to be that important. Similarly, they did
not consider the need to finance the transport of children to the
forest or the importance of the owner's consent to enter the
forest, to be significant. The research results showed that the
biggest risk for education in the forest appears to be its
availability to kindergarten.
We can therefore state that the forest is a suitable place for the
implementation of environmental education of preschool
children, regardless of formal or non-formal environmental
education. The research results also showed that the connection
of formal and informal concepts has a synergistic effect. It is
crucial to know the positive and negative aspects entering the
process of education in all directions and to have effective
concepts that will be able to enter t
his process. Miňová (2005)
also points out that the possibilities of implementing
environmental education in pre-school education are wide. From
learning about scientific practices through observation, exploring
the collecting and processing of information, to developing
critical thinking and decision making.
3 Conclusion
One of the offered alternatives of effective environmental
education in both school and out-of-school environment can be
forest pedagogy. The core of forest pedagogy is learning about
the forest ecosystem and educating people to a sustainable way
of life on the example of the forest. It is based on experiential
learning, sensory perception and a holistic approach to
personality development. A forest teacher as an educator or
lecturer of environmental education can be a helpful guide who
can share wisdom and experience, while not robbing the child of
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