Environmental Educational Meanings of Nature Experience Guidance Activities

자연체험 안내자 활동의 환경교육적 의미

An activity of nature experience guidance can be considered as an educational event, thus, I regarded the volunteers as the guides of nature experience and examined closely their guidance activities as a participant to provide in-depth description about their behavior, context, and changes in ethnographic view. In this study I raised two following questions; 1) how have the guides been changed through two types of activities and 2) what problems are brought up in their context. First, the volunteers acquired awareness and sensitivity to the total environment and its related problems during course of training, even though they were initially motivated to participate in training course for their children. Second, guidance activity improved their basic understanding of and views toward the environment, awareness of the total environment, attitudes to environment, skills in solving environmental problems and participation levels in working towards resolution of environmental problems. However, they had difficulties in communication with each other and since nature experience guides are wives and mothers they worked against time and needed support from their family. Further studies will continue on analysis of training programs for the guides to improve and to contribute guide's positive changes to non-formal environmental education.