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pp. 441-449 | DOI: 10.12973/ijese.2017.01239a | Article Number: ijese.2017.028
Published Online: May 09, 2017
Abstract
In order to achieve the regional sustainability and bio-cultural preservation, environmental education of youth will be critical, however due to the lack of the specific subject of regional studies at the educational curriculum, students are not able to achieve the skills to understand the local environment and feel isolated from nature.. We decided that, it would be very important to create active nature fieldworks where students can connect with nature by using five senses of perception (hearing, seeing, smelling, touching and tasting), to educate the feeling of connection and belonging to the nature and later develop the awareness of nature-human-culture interactions through the on-hands participatory fieldworks with local communities. Fieldworks were divided in two main parts; biodiversity experience with nature activities (NA) to increase the sense of belongings to the nature, by using five senses; visual (seeing), auditory (hearing), tactile (touching), gustatory (tasting), and olfactory (smelling) in three different ecosystems; marine, forest and mountain areas. The second part was cultural diversity fieldworks with rural communities (RC) to understand the nature-human-culture interactions. The survey, was conducted twice, before the fieldworks to evaluate the overall environmental awareness, knowledge, and attitude, and after the fieldworks, together with the reports submission. Results showed that NA helped students to understand the rural communities more deeply (96%) and they became more concerned about its future (95%). Before visiting the rural communities only 39% showed an interest in volunteering in the community, however after the NA and on-hands experiences with local people 95% showed the willingness to volunteer and help local people. This study suggest about the importance of fieldworks to educate the sense of unity with rural environment and recognizing the local issues. Students became more concerned about the regional issues and evoked the willingness to volunteer in the regions and contribute for the sustainable regional development.
Keywords: local community, Fieldworks, Bio-cultural diversity
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