• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.28-39
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• 2004

This study was carried out to find new perspective of forest recreation program in Gangwon-do. Gangwon-do has now 19 forest recreation sites (national forest 11, public forest 4, private forest 4) where forest interpretation, mountain bike, mountain marathon, mountain ski, forest music concert, various forest class are held. In order to develop the new programs for forest recreation program in Gangwon-do, this study considered culture program, welfare program and education program. For culture program, the experience program in traditional house, the experience in the back region and the experience in special product of mountain village were suggested. For welfare programs, the welfare programs for the old and the handicapped were shown. For education program, forest global village program and personality program were devised. According to introduction of 5 day-work per week, the population for recreation are expected to strongly increase, so Gangwon-do representing the image of tour province should improve continuous concern and various developing programs for forest recreation.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.149-159
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• 2023

This study aimed to improve the level of satisfaction and service quality of a forest experience education program for vulnerable social groups by administering a survey problems of the program and suggested improvements. 428 participants in the program. Reliability analysis of the survey yielded values of, Cronbach's α value was higher than 0.8 for all items, indicating very high reliability. Importance-performance analysis (IPA), a method of measuring and comparing the degree of satisfaction, found two factors: "first need for correction" which included "diversity of programs" and "professionalism of programs"; and "the need for sustained effort" which included "benefits of programs", "the role of program instructors" and "the interest of programs". Previously, forest experience education focused on programs involving base expansion and promotion, or quantitative expansion education. Therefore, this study is meaningful in providing basic data on forest experience education for vulnerable social groups.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.502-513
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• 2018

Objectives: Stress hormone (cortisol) can be used to analyze psychological and physiological changes and healing effects before and after in blood and saliva. Here it is applied to scientifically validate the effects of the healthy forest experience in Deogyusan Mountain National Park. Methods: A healthy forest experience program was provided to college students (males and females) at Deogyusan National Park. Stress, hormones (cortisol), blood pressure, pulse, oxygen saturation and stress, anxiety, and depression were measured. This study was designed to objectively analyze the effects of stress hormones before and after. Results: Depression, stress, anxiety, and satisfaction with the forest experience program in Deogyusan National Park were very high in reliability in terms of Cronbach's Alpha: depression scored 0.910, stress 0.558, anxiety 0.934, program satisfaction 0.826, and program effectiveness 0.894. Conclusions: In this study, we utilized the Healthy Forest Experience Program and the 'Health and Medical Center Health Record Book' of the Health Forest Experience Program (Ministry of Environment's Environmental Education Certification Program). In the future, we will seek ways to utilize saliva since it is easier to collect than blood samples and apply the stress hormone cortisol as a saliva authentication program. In addition, by implementing ecological welfare programs in which nature and human beings coexist through systematic preservation and restoration, the national park management can utilize ecological, scenic and cultural services wisely. We expect to be able to provide exploration and welfare services.

• 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.

• Hwankyungkyoyuk
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.97-114
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• 2010

The aims of this study are to develop and apply a Nature Game program for the ecological experience learning in Jeju Gotjawal forest and analyze the environmental sensitivity change of the students. The results obtained in 4th graders of A elementary school of Seogwipo-city are as follows: It was found that attention, susceptibility and practice will of environment protection for forest environment of the experimental class were significantly higher than those of the comparison class. And it was found that interest and curiosity into forest environment were also elevated in the results of the qualitative evaluation, suggesting that we could get the effect of developed Nature Game program on ecological experience learning. If various ecological experience learning programs considering the regional-specific characteristics are developed to cause students' interest and curiosity, students would come to participate in the protection activity of environment aggressively a little more.

• 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.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.908-914
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• 2016

Both interests in nature-friendly education and demands for nature experience program are steadily increasing in children education field in korea. This study aims to find out that five-sense experience-activity with healing factors of forest can have an effect on both self-efficacy and respectful recognition of life of children. 5-year-old young children were chosen as the subjects for this study. Test group participated two times a week in the special forest class in a children education institute in Chungju oo-dong while control group did not. Both test group and control group were composed of 20 young children respectively and each group were 11 boys and 9 girls respectively. The five senses experience activity program was conducted two sessions a week from 8 August to 20 September in 2016 and each session was one hour (60 minutes) long. Five senses experience activity is an activity that young children awaken their five senses in the forest, recognize seasonal change with their five senses, build up their selves and become intimate with nature. Before and after the program self- efficacy test and respectful recognition of life test were conducted and the data was analyzed using SPSS 18.0 program. The results indicated that after participating five senses experience activity program both children's self-efficacy which means having positive-thinking and self-confidence and respectful recognition of life which means valuing nature coexisting with nature were improved significantly(p<0.05). Through five senses experience activity young children felt nature freely and to their heart's content with their bodies and five senses experience activity had better positive impacts on children's self- efficacy and respectful recognition of life than classroom activities.

• Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.505-513
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• 2019

As the number of foreign workers increases in Korea, people's interest in their adaptation to this society has also increased. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a forest-healing program on foreign workers' cultural adaptation stress and psychological wellbeing. The experiment was conducted in a recreation forest located in Hongcheon-gun, Gangwon-do. The subjects who participated in this study included 40 foreign workers (16 males, 24 females). The experiment was conducted for three days and two nights from June 26 to 28, 2019. The forest healing program was composed of activities that can enhance immunity and restore physical and mental health by utilizing various healing environmental factors such as landscapes, sunlight, anion and oxygen in forest. The independent sample t-test was conducted to examine changes in cultural adaptation stress and psychological well-being before and after the program. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS 18.0 program. As a result, cultural adaptation stress was statistically significantly reduced in sub-factors including discrimination experience, language conflict and legal status. Psychological wellbeing improved in all the surveyed sub-factors such as self-confidence, ego, immersion, and joy. The results of this study are expected to be used as basic data for reducing the stress foreign workers experience from cultural adaptation and restoring their psychological wellbeing in the future.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.105 no.1
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• pp.139-148
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• 2016

The purpose of this study was to evaluate critically the effects of forest experience on young children using meta-analysis. To test this, a total 30 studies were identified, and mean effect size of variables was calculated by applying Fixed-effect model. As a result, the overall effect size of forest experience on young children was 0.797. The effect sizes of daily type as a program type had an effect than experience type at the level of .939. And also the effect sizes of period program (more 4month), number of participants (10-20people), program time (180minute), dependant variables (multiple intelligence) yield effects 0.972, 0.980, 1.138 and 0.957 respectively. As the result, this study implies a way which is to derive effectively further studies on the forest experience on young children.

• 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.