Fear of forest: impact of an environmental education program on decrease of pupils’ fear of staying in forest environment

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Published: Sep 30, 2012
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14712/18023061.74
Keywords:
Fear of forest, programme evaluation

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Jan Činčera

Abstract

The article presents results of an analysis of the program “Forest at school – school in the forest”, for 6th grades’ pupils. The aim of this work was to investigate the sources of fear of forest and the effectiveness of the program in its effort to deal with it. The evaluation applied a simple pretest/posttest design (N=70). On the basis of its results we can presume that pupils visit forests quite rarely; boys more often than girls. Generally, children are not scared of a forest; girls are more scared than boys. Children mainly fear natural threats (e.g. wild animals); and social risks, e.g. threat from bad people or human-caused accidents. The program probably did not have much effect on boys but probably influenced girls where the level of fear in all the areas of sources of forest fear (natural threats, social threats and uneasy situations) decreased.

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How to Cite
Činčera, J. (2012). Fear of forest: impact of an environmental education program on decrease of pupils’ fear of staying in forest environment. Envigogika, 7(2). https://doi.org/10.14712/18023061.74
Issue
Vol. 7 No. 2 (2012)
Section
Reviewed Papers
Author Biography

Jan Činčera

PhDr. Jan Činčera, Ph.D.

Autor vyučuje environmentální výchovu a prožitkovou pedagogiku na Technické univerzitě v Liberci. Jako evaluátor programů dále spolupracuje se středisky ekologické výchovy a organizacemi zabývajícími se globálním rozvojovým vzděláváním.

profesní zaměření: environmentální výchova, vzdělávání pro udržitelný rozvoj, výchova o Zemi, evaluace programů, pedagogika volného času, informační věda

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