Sylva Foundation staff were pleased to contribute to the Botanic Gardens Education Network 2015 annual conference: ‘Time for Trees’ at Westonbirt Arboretum.
Jen Hurst, Sylva Foundation’s Education Manager, teamed up with the Field Studies Council and the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom to deliver a comprehensive and varied workshop exploring ways in which British trees and forestry topics can be taught in the secondary school curriculum. Jen then tasked participants to link topic areas of the new Key Stage 4 GCSE Geography curriculum to sustainable forest management using ideas from Sylva’s OneOak project.
Participants tackle the task of ordering the story of the One Oak project from the living tree to its range of 60 products on the ‘OneOak washing line’. Photo: BGEN/Graham Anstey
Sylva CEO Gabriel Hemery contributed to a panel discussion on wood culture, speaking about what it means to modern society and how to strengthen people’s affinity with the natural world.
Conference delegates agreed that there is need for increased forest education concerning British trees and forestry in secondary education, and this workshop went a long way to making progress at a national level.
