A Research of the Status of Nature Classrooms in Parks in Seoul and Suggestion of Improvement Plans

Recently, park usage for environmental education has gained popularity in Seoul. Therefore this study was performed by analyzing the status and problems of nature classrooms in neighborhood parks and citizen's parks that are located in residential areas in Seoul, and then by suggesting improved methods and user programs. The results of this study are summarized as follows. 1) 18 out of 281 neighborhood parks and citizen's parks have nature classrooms in Seoul. Facilities of nature classroom are comprised of direction signs, plant name card, pond, pavilion, pergola, bench, green house, waste baskets, lighting, drinking fountain and others. However, they have many problems in terms of quality. Nature classrooms were classified into three types according to their location in each park. Among the three types, the most popular type was the one that is a part of a park A Total of 479 species of plant (155 species in tree, 324 species in herb) were planted in nature classrooms. There are many kinds of environmental education user programs, but these are not connected with the nature classrooms. Most nature education programs in nature classrooms were self-guided. 2) The Problems that appeared were the featureless place composition, a lack of programs related to nature classrooms, access restriction to certain natured areas, and so on. 3) Finally, this study suggests some solutions to the problems of nature classrooms in urban parks. The solutions include full access to the parks, the creation of diverse theme, and setting up interesting panel and leaflets in order to encourage more active self-guided education.

서울시 공원 내 자연학습장 현황 분석과 개선방안