What is nature education?

The term nature education refers to two areas:

Educating children in nature

Nature education is a sub-area of the education and upbringing of children and young people. It is mainly aimed at toddlers and children in urban environments far from nature and offers them forest play groups, forest schools, nature children's groups and the like.

In the groups (often in the forest), the focus is on direct experience and observation in the great outdoors. This engages all of the children's senses (hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, seeing) and promotes balance and coordinated movement. Children also train their social behavior and develop creativity and a sense of responsibility in dealing with natural resources.

Nature education is therefore also at the service of environmental education. It is based on the assumption that children who get to know and appreciate nature will be more motivated to act ecologically and treat nature responsibly as adults.

Raising awareness of nature and nature experience for adults

Nature education and wilderness education are also available for adults. The aim here is to reacquaint ourselves with nature after being alienated by modern, urban lifestyles and to get a feeling for the fact that we humans are part of the natural world around us, intimately connected to it and dependent on it.

Nature education creates this familiarity through intensive contact and many experiential opportunities. This includes: experiencing oneself as part of nature, being exposed to it with all senses, engaging with these experiences and also dealing with them emotionally.

Experiencing the group, being dependent on each other and the value of exchange are further valuable learning experiences in nature. The result is a better understanding of ecological relationships and the effects of one's own behavior.

This form of nature and wilderness education is aimed at adults who wish to experience nature for themselves and also at those who wish to enable others to do so - be it in the form of nature adventure tours and trekking offers or as coaching and self-awareness courses.

Provider of courses "Nature educator (certified)"