Presentation by Marja Gustafsson, Swedish Forest Agency, at the 5th European Forest Pedagogy Congress 21th – 22nd October 2010 Lahti, Finland This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This product reflects the views only of the author and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

This project is supported of the Lifelong Learning Program of the European Union (LLP). It is a multilateral Comenius project. Comenius is a sub-program to LLP. According to the objectives of LLP and Comenius we will try to:

Background 2006 Workshop in Estonia about how organisations in different countries working with education about the forest in primary and secondary school can cooperate. Participants from Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Germany, Norway and Sweden Some of the participants from the workshop in Estonia and some new countries met in a workshop in Latvia to create a project idea together. The aim of the project was to increase the education about sustainable development including social, ecological and economic values and to improve the communication between foresters and the public. Participants from Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Czech rep., Slovakia and Sweden. A network was formed and a framework for an application to the community was created.

Background cont March. The application was sent in but in autumn 2007 our application was rejected November. During a conference “Dialogue between the Forest Sector and Schools” in Finland we decided to further develop our project idea. A teaching methodology Case Forest had been developed in Finland by prof. Jorma Enkenberg and his team at Eastern University, teachers education in Savonlinna. We found that Case Forest interesting and we wanted to test the methodology and spread to other countries March. A new application was sent in and this time we succeeded Dec. The project started!

Aims and objectives Increase the knowledge about economical, ecological, social and cultural values of forest among compulsory school teachers. Spread the so called Case Forest methodology in the consortium countries, which will facilitate the teaching about sustainable development. Find out how the methodology works in different countries and which adjustments of the methodology have to be done. Improve the communication between foresters and the public.

Aims and objectives By using the methodology in schools: The children will be more interested in forests and forest related topics. They will also increase the creativity and joy of learning. The children's ability to evaluate and make their own decisions about how forest should be used will increase. The teachers will use other learning arenas than the classroom such as forests, forest museums and forest industries and involve people working with forests in the education.

Short term target groups People involved in the consortium. Teachers participating in the teacher courses Other people in the organisation they represent. National “forest in school” networks and the international networks, LEAF and European network Waldpaedagogik. These teachers will inform other teachers in the school where they work.

Long term target groups Children in all countries. Hopefully all teachers involved in the courses arranged within the project will try the methodology at least once in their classes. 120X25 that’s up to pupils. More teachers in every country. New courses about the adjusted Case Forest methodology will be held. More children in every country. If the methodology will be successful there is no limit on how many pupils who can benefit from the project.

Project members, public/business long experience from forest pedagogy Bulgaria University of Forestry Estonia Estonian Forest Industries Association State Forest Management Center Estonian Biology and Geography Teachers´ Ass. Finland Finnish Forest Association University of Eastern Finland, Savonlinna Dep. of Teachers Latvia Stora Enso Lithuania Kaunas College of Forestry and Environmental Engineering The Czech Republic Forest Management Institute Slovakia National Forest Centre Sweden Swedish Forest Agency Umeå University Sweden Swedish Forest Agency Umeå University 8 countries 12 organisations

Methods Start meeting in Estonia. Starting to learn to know each other. First introduction to the Case Forest methodology Workshop in Finland. Course about the Case Forest methodology. Whole project group and also two teachers from every country. Planning the teacher courses in every country. Program, teaching manuals etc. Testing the methodology. Teacher course in every country, 10 teachers per course. Evaluation of teacher courses. Adjustment of Case Forest methodology to fit in each country. Writing country reports. Final meeting in Bulgaria. Report from each country and sharing experiences with each others. Decision about how to continue to cooperate, maybe new project ideas? Dissemination of results. Conclusions and writing of final report

Activities/outputs Teacher courses in all countries Start meeting in Estonia Workshop in Finland Final meeting in Bulgaria

Communication plan - internal and external, dissemination of results Quality plan – evaluations, reports etc. Activities/outputs cont. Country reports Teacher manuals Progressive and final reports Webpages DVD

Time-Schedule Start in December 2008 End in December 2010

Total project budget euro of which funded by: the Community: euro (75%) members of the project consortium: euro (25%) Project budget

120 participating teachers, 85% women 76 % of the participants answered that they will try everything or quite a lot of what they’ve learned during the course “Students can explore, study things that interest them. Students have more independence, they have to think and make decisions themselves.” Project results June 2010

Finland, workshops, webpage& newsletters, new courses, The 5 Th European Forest Congress October,2010 in Lahti Sweden, web pages teaching materials, new teacher courses, conference presentations, articles in forestry papers, teachers`education, Estonia, articles, conference presentations, new projects, cooperation with Tartu and Tallinn University to develop inquiry and mobile learning, founding of Ministry of Education for teachers training courses about inquiry learning. Dissemination of results

Latvia, web pages-regional-municipal-school-articles, forest newspaper, Cf newsletter, report of Agriculture Ministry on forest sector activities in Schools Lithuania, mass media, forestry journals, web sites, a new teacher course by Education Centre in Kedainai region, reports Czech Republic, web page forest pedagogy events, September- School educational programs by Case Forest teachers. Dissemination of results

Slovakia, web page articles, press releases, 4 Th European FP convention 1-2 October 2009 in Lyss. New project new partner Methodical and Pedagogical Centre for continuous learning of teachers. Seminar as a part of credit continuous education of teachers and accreditation at the Ministry of Education New methodology in Forest Pedagogicswww.caseforest.nlck.skwww.proles.sk Bulgaria, web page, articles, method will be used by teachers participated in the seminar at professionals forestry schools in 8 different regions, Ministry of Agriculture and foods participated also in the seminar. Dissemination of results

We made it!