WWF Nature Academy - cooperation of schools and protected areas
Solution complète
WWF Nature Academy
WWF Adria
„WWF Nature Academy“ is an 8 months long environmental education program that aims to develop key competencies of teachers and their students that lead to active citizenship for nature conservation. Each school participating in the program implements an environmental project in cooperation with the management of the protected area in their close proximity. Since 2016 we have engaged 20 schools in Serbia that became Ambassadors for one of the 5 protected areas involved in the program. During the program, participants learn about protected areas, ecological footprint, project-based and experiential learning, as well as about media relations in order to promote their results. Within the 20 implemented school projects 110 teachers and 333 students were actively involved in the implementation of various activities and approximately 3900 students benefited from these activities.
Dernière modification 05 Oct 2020
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Contexte
Challenges addressed
- Lack of good quality classes in nature.
- Lack of educational programmes in protected areas.
- Teachers have no reference books, guidelines or recommendations (curriculum, work plan) for teaching outdoors.
- Most parents feel that nature excursions are not safe or cannot finance them.
- Travel agencies have big influence on the itineraries of school excursion and are not considering the quality of the excursion programme.
Emplacement
Bajina Bašta, Zlatibor District, Serbia
East Europe
Traiter
Summary of the process
Building blocks are created in a way that they each is built on the previous one and they have to be synchronised with the school year.
Selection of PAs and schools is followed by and intensive training that enables schools and PAs to start cooperation (building block 1), define their common goal and develop the detailed school project plan (building block 2). The implementation of the school project and achieving results is only possible if the schools and PAs have regular communication and support each other as some activities are being implemented in the PA.
If building blocks 1 and 2 are implemented well and show the expected results it is possible to organize the final event that brings all participants together to exchange their success, experiences, challenges and benefits they gained through the project.
Building Blocks
Education programme for schools and Protected areas
The education program aims to develop key competencies of teachers and their students that lead to active citizenship for nature conservation. Each school participating in the program implements an environmental project in cooperation with the management of the protected area in their close proximity.
The education program is divided into two phases:
1. Developing the WWF Nature Academy guidebook with 5 chapters: protected areas, ecological footprint, active civic participation, project management, and working with the media.
2. Five days training for teachers and students using the previously developed WWF Academy guidebook. The training has a strong focus on interactive and hands on activities in nature. After the training schools become Ambassadors for the protected area they live close to. Each school receives an Ambassador plaque and an “Explorer toolkit” with various didactical tools and materials, including the WWF Nature Academy guidebook.
Enabling factors
Institutional:
1. Protected areas have a person responsible for education.
2. Interested schools willing to participate in an 8 months long programme.
3. Good cooperation between project partners – regular communication, joint development of the program and joint implementation of activities.
Internal capacities of implementing organization:
1. Experience in education and high motivation.
2. Good facilitation, moderation and logistical skills of project coordinator.
3. Dedicate a lot of time for traveling to protected areas and schools.
Lesson learned
- It is important that each Protected area has a dedicated contact person for educational programs.
- If PAs don’t have trained staff for implementing educational activities, find or organize additional trainings for them (nature interpretation, outdoor activities, experiential learning).
- Include 2 teachers from each ambassador school as it can easily happen that one of them is absent for a longer period. This ensures a continuous project implementation. If possible include teachers from lower and higher grades.
- Organize a visit of the Ambassador school project team to the PA immediately after the training in order to start the cooperation and develop the project activities together.
- Organise mandatory visits of project coordinator to each Ambassador school during the academic year.
- Involve students from lower grades in order to keep them actively involved in the school for several years – this encourages peer education and develops leadership skills.
Connecting Protected areas with local schools
Cooperation between PAs and local schools had benefits for both sides. PA staff implements education activities according to their management plan and gets a strong partner in local schools for promoting PAs natural and cultural values to the local community. The schools get the chance to implement outdoor activities and enrich the extra curricula activities in the school.
Cooperation between the PA and the schools includes:
1. Ambassador school project teams in cooperation with PA focal point develop a detailed program for the school project. The program includes specific activities and a timeline for implementation.
2. Implementation of project activities is from December to May. Activities can be implemented in the school (during winter months – workshops, surveys, art work) or outdoors in the protected areas (during spring months) and should include as many pupils as possible.
3. Ambassadors schools promote the values of the PAs and their project results to the local media.
4. Each project team writes the final report and submits it to WWF prior to the final event.
Enabling factors
1. Protected areas have integrated educational activities in their management and annual plan.
2. Schools have to be informed about the program on time in order to integrate the activity into the annual school plan.
3. PAs and schools have to plan activities on time in order to have enough time to implement them during school year.
4. All students need the consent of their parents/legal guardian for the participation in the project as it involves activities outside of school and usage of photo and video materials.
Lesson learned
• Organise visits of project coordinators to each Ambassador school or joint visits to the Protected areas.
• Involving The advantage of working with teachers (grades 1-4) in the WWF Nature Academy contributes to greater inclusion of parents and grandparents to project-related activities.
• The invitation to school cooperation should not only be intended for biology/natural sciences teachers. The classes in nature should be interdisciplinary. Involving art, music or language teacher into the school project teams was very beneficiary, as it enabled the development of interdisciplinary competences.
• Schools working with disabled children can be equally involved in the project with some slight adjustments for their project implementation.
• When planning multiple generations of ambassador schools, it is good to plan a meeting of all generations of ambassador teachers and pupils at some point, as it strengthens the bond between schools and PAs, but also between the ambassador schools. This should be organized outdoors in a PA with a lot of team building and exploration activities.
Presenting results and networking among PAs and schools
The WWF Nature Academy cycle ends with a final event were all ambassador schools present the results of their projects and the protected area they are an ambassador of. The final event is hosted by one of the participating protected area and the goal of the events is to share success, lessons learned and promote networking among the ambassador schools and PAs. An important element of the final event is the press conference for local and national media.
During the academic year the ambassador schools share their results on the WWF Nature Academy Facebook page (a closed group for project participants), on their school websites and Facebook groups and they communicate them to the local media together with the protected area.
After the final event each ambassador school becomes a mentor to a new school participating in the academy and hands them over the “mentoring box” with suggestions, motivational messages and handmade souvenirs. In this way ambassador schools of the same protected area start to cooperate and in time build a school network of the protected area.
Very important for the end of the academy cycle – celebrate the success at a thematic biodivesity party!
Enabling factors
1. School director supports participation and enables to the teachers to implement activities outside of the school.
2. All students need the consent of their parents/legal guardian for the participation in the project as it involves activities outside of school and usage of photo and video materials.
3. Good cooperation between the protected areas and their ambassador schools, PAs support in the implementation of project activities.
4. Willingness of the PA to host the final event.
Lesson learned
- Sending clear instruction to the ambassador schools on how to present their project results and their protected area.
- Start to organize the final event with the PA on time and clearly define who is doing what.
- Have representatives off all involved protected areas present at the final event.
- If possible include more students from the hosting ambassador schools as it does not influence the budget of the event and gives more students the opportunity to present the results they have achieved.
- If possible help the ambassador schools to arrange a meeting with their mentoring school before the next school year starts.
Resources
Impacts
WWF Nature Academy brings an innovative approach in advancing the competencies for environmental education and active citizenship and provides opportunities and models for a higher degree of association between protected areas and local communities. Parents and wider families whose children (more than 3900) were part of ambassador schools were covered by the programme. This led to increased awareness of locals on the importance of the protected area in their region. Local residents become ambassadors of the PAs and changed their attitude towards nature protection. For the first time in Serbia, 20 local schools with its 110 teachers connected with 5 PAs in their vicinity and started collaborating on education in and about nature. WWF academy initiated cooperation between nature protection sector and education sector (Ministry of Education). WWF Academy workplan, its approaches and methods became part of the curricula for participating schools, thereby making the programme sustainable. Parts of the program have been replicated in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro.
Beneficiaries
# schools – 20
# educated teachers – 23
# educated students – 20
# teachers involved in project teams – 110
# students involved in project teams – 333
# students reached by school activities – 3903
# local stakeholders involved in activities - 95
Sustainable Development Goals
SDG 4 – Quality education
SDG 13 – Climate action
SDG 15 – Life on land
Story
WWF Academy participants
Milica Milović Kinoli
“There was a lot of difficulties at the beginning, but my greatest satisfaction was when the pupils asked me what we would be doing next. That showed me that we had got that creative energy flowing inside them,” proudly stated Aleksandra Đurić Karaklić, a biology professor at the Josif Pančić Gymnasium secondary school in Bajina Bašta, when explaining the process of creating the ‘Mini Tara Garden’ in the schoolyard. This secondary school, one of the Ambassador schools of the National park Tara, intended to bring together pupils and teachers from schools near protected areas and work together with the protected area management on how to protect the environment surrounding them.
“I never had any idea about all there is at Tara, even though I regularly came here to ski with my parents when I was younger. I am part of the biology school club, and at the WWF Academy, I learned about all the protected plants and animals on this mountain, and what this means to our region and to all of Serbia. For example, Serbian spruce grows here, which can no longer be found anywhere else in the Balkans,” said Jovana Katanić.
For Jovana and her peer Matija Žuža, staying after school was not a problem. They are happy that once they leave school, they will have left something behind, and they are pleased to see pupils from other schools coming to visit the Mini Tara Garden. Matija said that only after getting involved in the project did he begin to notice the nature surrounding him. But he has also started to notice problems.
“I have come to realise why this area is protected, there is definitely a reason. We need to take more care about how we act in nature, and towards nature. I often see garbage while I’m walking, and I think that people are not ecologically aware. I have begun to scold my parents and others if I see them throwing garbage onto the street or anywhere else,” explained Matija.
“We donated the necessary materials for the school, while our park staff worked together with the pupils to design the garden and plant the saplings. Cooperation with local schools is a strategic focus for us, as young people are quicker to accept and master new knowledge and ideas, and to enthusiastically share them with their surroundings. In the future, this will result in better connections between Tara National Park and the local population and will improve public understanding of the issues involved in nature conservation,” stated Milanović, Head of Outreach and Tourism Department.
