Creating a Forest for Learning

Abstract

Abstract: The National Forest in the English Midlands has developed a model based on a five-point outdoor learning plan, to enable every schoolchild within the Forest area to regularly experience outdoor-based learning within their school curriculum. The Forest began in the early 1990s, with the aim of transforming a post-industrial landscape and its communities through the planting of trees. Extending over 200 square miles and with a population of around 200,000, the National Forest’s project ‘Creating a Forest for Learning’ has developed from three decades of environmental education work with rural, urban and nearby inner city schools. The project funds staff training and grounds work, to make it easier to embed the practice in the school improvement plan. The chapter discusses the drive behind developing the project, to embed a love for and understanding of trees and woodlands in the generation of children growing up in a young forest, and to realise one of the original ambitions in creating a forest near where people live and work: to transform lives as well as the landscape, and to offer children a range of high-quality learning experiences, where 21st-century skills such as resilience, communication and adaptability come to the fore. By improving their connection to nature, the young people are building resources for their own health and wellbeing. This can only help them become active citizens as society moves to a green recovery from Covid-19, and equip them to take a positive standpoint in addressing the climate crisis. The chapter presents the progress, obstacles and successes experienced by this unique project, where education underpins aspirations to embed sustainable living.