• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.341-353
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• 2019

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of urban forest and school forest experience programs on attitude toward the forest, psychological well-being, and stress of high school students. The subjects of this study were 26 students from a high school located in B-dong in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province. They were divided into the experimental groups participating in urban forest experience and the control groups participating in school forests experience. Each group participated in the five weekly two-hour long forest experience program. We conducted a pre- and post-experience questionnaire surveys using the scale of environmental attitude toward the forest, the scale of psychological well-being, and the scale of academic stress to observe mental and psychological changes of the high school students. Data were analyzed by SPSS 23.0 program and a Wilcoxon sign rank test. There was a significant increase in the attitude toward forests of high school students participating in the forest experience programs. The groups participating in the school forest experience showed an increase in the psychological well-being although it was not statistically significant, and the groups participating in the urban forest experience showed a statistically significant increase, indicating that the forest experience affected the psychological well-being of the high school students. The groups participating in the school forest experience showed a decrease in the academic stress although it was not statistically significant, and the groups participating in the urban forest experience showed a statistically significant decrease, indicating that the forest experience affected the academic stress of the high school students.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.334-342
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• 2019

This study is empirically intended to look into the effects of parents' perception of their children's forest experience activities on educational effectiveness. The results were as follows. First, parents' perception of forest experience operation activities had a significant effect on educational effectiveness according to the period of participation in forest experience education. And their perception of the appropriate number of teachers to support forest experience had a significant effect on educational effectiveness. Second, parents' perception - which it is appropriate for the current daycare centers to participate in forest experience every day except a day with a lot of fine dust and a day with bad weather- had a significant effect on educational effectiveness. And their perception of appropriate forest experience places had a significant effect on educational effectiveness. Third, parents' perception of appropriate time in the day for forest experience activities had a significant effect on educational effectiveness. Fourth, parents' perception of their children's forest experience activities had a significant effect on communication. As for the above-stated findings, there was a significant difference in educational effectiveness and communication according to parents' perception of their children's overall forest experience activities. Consequently, there is the differences in their perception of educational effectiveness in the number of teachers in charge due to outdoor activities, the relationship with weather due to fine dust, forest experience places, education time, etc, indicating that these common concerns are related to the safe educational activities of children.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.462-473
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• 2015

The research carried out to analyze the change of recognition of elementary school students after a forest experience to determine the effectiveness of the environmental education in elementary school curriculum. The data is collected through surveys before and after forest experience for 311 people on 2nd and 3rd grades of two elementary school in Jeonju city, then the conclusions analyzed the results of the surveys are as follows. Students who participated in the forest experience show a positive change in all areas after the forest experience, for example, awareness of the forest and behavior recognition in the forest, the need for commentary about the forest. Especially, the area of the behavior recognition has much significant result than the other areas. In the details of the behavior recognition, a behavior recognition and environmental awareness for the life of the forest have been greatly improved. From the results described above, the forest experience can be seen a great help to elementary school students to have a respect and dignity of life and recognize the importance of the natural environment. Thus, the nature experience such as the forest experience is needed to enhance the life respect and environmental consciousness, foster sensitivity to natural cycles. In order that much more elementary school student can participate in evironmetal education through the forest experience, it would suggest to perform the forest experience as creative and experiential activities in the school curriculum.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.541-552
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• 2018

This study investigated for perception about particulate matter in daily lives of mothers who have children aged from three to five years old and the difference of perception after participating in forest experience programs. The data were compiled from 122 mothers of preschoolers composed by 61 mothers who participated in the forest experience and those who did not. 82.8 percent of 122 mothers were concerned with particulate matters, and 84.4 percent frequently checked information on particulate matters. However, they lacked knowledge, countermeasures, and active practice to reduce it. Awareness of forest and fine particulate matter was high among mothers who had participated in the forest experience, with a high positive perception of forest role and forest environment. Therefore, expanding the opportunity for mothers to actively experience forest will contribute not only the forest experience in infants being activated but also to improve harmful environment such as fine particulate matter.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.49 no.6
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• pp.49-63
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• 2021

The Forest Visitor Centers for Little Children who means preschoolers is an educational facility that achieves holistic growth by experiencing forests, and it should not be completed by installing specific facilities in the forest environment, but should be a space where preschoolers can play freely in the forest environment themselves. This study comprehensively evaluated the current status of Seoul Forest Visitor Centers for Little Children and suggested space improvement measures to enhance the effectiveness of forest experience. Through the theoretical review, seven spatial elements that enhance the effect of forest experience and six areas composing outdoor play areas were derived to prepare an analysis table for current status evaluation, and field survey studies were conducted on 24 centers in Seoul. Through expert interviews, the physical status was examined from the perspective of childhood education and the experiences of the users were summarized. As a result of the study, the Seoul Forest Visitor Center for Little Children is classified into six types according to the location characteristics and spatial structure, and has the characteristics of each type. The effectiveness of forest experience can be enhanced by identifying and revealing the environmental strengths of individual centers. In the case of outdoor experience learning zones, the proportion of exercise play areas was very large. By evenly organizing the forest experience space for each area, it will be possible to provide more diverse experiences to preschoolers. However, the status of uniform facility-oriented cannot be viewed as a fragmentary factor that lowers the effect of forest experience. The key to increasing the effect of forest experience by inducing creative activities is the spatial composition that considers the surrounding natural environment. Facilities should be a medium to help preschoolers' interest move into the forest. This study prepared data to understand the average physical status of the Seoul Forest Visitor Center for Little Children and suggested space improvement measures to increase the effectiveness of forest experience. This can be used as basic data for research to improve the quality level of the Seoul Forest Visitor Center for Little Children about 10 years after the project was implemented.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.413-421
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• 2018

This study is intended to look into the effects of children's forest experience activities on parent-child relationship and child attitude change. To achieve this, a survey was empirically carried out to 185 children. The results were as follows. First, the normality of parent-child relationship before and after forest experience activities showed that the parent-child relationship increased from 3.229 points before participation in forest experience activities to 3.841 points after participation in forest experience activities on average. And the child attitude increased from 3.226 points before participation in forest experience activities to 3.765 points after participation in forest experience activities, which there was a change of mean value before and after forest experience activities in both concepts. Second, the difference in parent-child relationship and child attitude change before and after forest experience activities showed that both parent-child relationship(Z=-10.98, p<.001) and child attitude(Z=-11.05, p<.001) did have significant differences before and after forest experience activities in the significant level of .05. As for the above-mentioned findings, children's forest experience activities improves the parent-child relationship and changes their behaviors outside the kindergarten. Consequently, nature-friendly forest experience education can provide emotional stability for children and help them build a positive rapport between teacher, parent and peer.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.40-55
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• 2015

This study aims to evaluate the efficiency of the forest experience center for children led by the local community as experiential management for forest kindergarten education. For this, an importance and performance analysis was conducted on the forest experience center for children in Geumcheon-gu, which, of the 12 forest experience center for kids in Seoul, is the only one led by the local community. The questionnaire sheet for the analysis consisted of a total of 36 questions, 20 about place facility areas and 16 about management program areas(including 6 questions about the management led by the local community). The questionnaire survey was done during the period between January 12th and January 19th, 2015. The participants in the survey consisted of 15 forest education specialists and 50 teachers from 19 kindergartens who participated in the forest experience program. The number of questionnaire sheets collected and used for analysis was 13 copies and 43 copies, respectively. The mean values of importance and performance on the place facility areas were 4.07 and 3.78 for forest education specialists, and 4.16 and 3.84 for kindergarten teachers, respectively. The mean values of importance and performance regarding the management program area were 4.38 and 4.16 for forest education specialists, and 4.40 and 4.00 for kindergarten teachers, respectively. Both groups evaluated the place facility areas lower than the management program areas. They also evaluated performance lower than importance. In place facility area, 'accessibility', 'safety' and 'connectivity to forest trail', 'loose parts' and 'safety facilities' were required to 'keep up the good work', because they showed higher importance and performance in place facility areas. Even though most items of management as led by the local community including 'forest experience activity support' were evaluated as 'important', some, including 'effort for local revitalization', were evaluated as low in performance. However, as they were evaluated as higher in importance, if they pursue 'concentrate here', it is expected that they will be evaluated as higher in performance. In addition, considering that program areas including 'forest education specialist's role' are labeled under the management led by the local community, it reflected a positive evaluation. As a result, management led by the local community is efficient as a management system for the forest experience center for children in an experiential forest kindergarten education. Going forward, if this management system is durable in 'keep up the good work' and 'concentrate here', the forest experience center for children led by the local community will be an alternative for an effective experiential forest kindergarten education.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.16 no.8
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• pp.5189-5197
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• 2015

This study is intended to look into early childhood teachers' perceptions and needs for forest experience activities. To achieve this, a survey was carried out to 170 early childhood teachers in kindergartens and child care centers in Daejeon city. The SPSS(Statistical Package for Social Science) v. 18.0 was used for data analysis through the process of data coding and data cleaning. The frequency analysis was conducted for the general state of those surveyed. The frequency analysis, ANOVA and factor analysis were conducted for the perceptions and needs for forest experience activities. The findings showed that early childhood teachers had positive perceptions for the educational effects of forest experience activities. Especially, they perceived that the educational programs of forest experience activities need to be highly recommended to early children as forest experience education is important for forest experience activities. Consequently, forest experience education is just as important and useful for early children to learn the importance of coexistence with human and nature, and develop a sense of community by interacting with nature.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.255-262
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• 2021

This study examined the effect of rope play through forest experience on children's self-confidence. Empirical analysis through the experimental design was carried out on an experimental group of 15 (seven male and eight female children) and a control group of 15 (nine male and six female children). Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) for the effect between the experimental and control groups after the experimental treatment showed that the mean of the experimental group was significantly higher than that of the control group (F=357.350, p<.001). Rope play through forest experience has a statistically significant effect on the children's self-confidence. Consequently, rope play through forest experience between peers is a beneficial experience that helps improve children's self-confidence. Furthermore, it is a positive play activity to help them with a passive character boost to their self-confidence through cooperation between peers.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.3616-3624
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• 2014

The aim of this study was to inquire into the perceptions and the needs of parents on their forest experience activity. To achieve this, a survey was carried out on 250 parents of children in a Gyeonggi-based private kindergarten from December 26 to December 31, 2013. The results are as follows. For the perceptions of parents on the forest experience activity, the 'perception on overall effectiveness' was the highest, followed in order by 'perception on educational effectiveness' and 'general perception'. For the needs of parents on their forest experience activity, 58.2% of them recognized the importance of regular forest experience activity. For the necessity of an annual program, 60.7% of them recognized the necessity of a planned annual program. For the recommendation of forest experience activity, 61.1% of them gave a strong recommendation for forest experience activity. As stated above, most parents positively viewed children's forest experience activity in the environment as it is difficult to approach nature in downtown areas, and children also highly viewed the educational effectiveness of it.