What is FACT?
Forest and Climate Training (FACT) is a network for sharing activities and resources to enhance environmental knowledge and skills through inter-generational exchange and hands-on opportunities for youth to work in local ecosystems. FACT works as a collaborative consortium of non-governmental organizations, teachers, practitioners, researchers, artists, and governmental agencies working to explore, develop, and implement nature-based solutions, and train our next generation of environmental leaders and practitioners.
FACT builds upon a unique approach to environmental education combining an emphasis on scientific inquiry and rigor with a celebration of nature and the human spirit. This includes immersion of students in the natural world through the exploration and learning about traditional knowledge, forest ecology, ecosystem restoration, plant medicines and foods, resource mapping at multiple scales, and hands-on management of native and invasive species. Cultural revival festivals, art, legend and lore, and immersive activities create lasting memories of forest species, their ecology, and relationship with humans over time.
Transformative Education & Action
During the next century, environmental understanding and careers will be of critical importance, in areas such as habitat restoration, water quality, urban forestry, remote sensing and mapping, the energy sector, regenerative farming, native plants, and environmental and mental health. Currently, skilled professionals and training opportunities for youth are limited. In addition, innovative approaches which strategically blend scientific and traditional knowledge are lacking.
The Forest and Climate Training initiative will help fill this gap by producing innovative educational modules developed by leading global and local researchers and practitioners, and over time, providing experiential training to teachers and urban and rural youth currently lacking these opportunities. The initiative will bridge the gap between theory and practice by providing practical skills and knowledge for youth and their educators.
Outdoor Learning: Regional and Global Advantages
Research reveals that place-based learning enhances cognitive ability, emotional and physical health. It also increases socialization, promotes empathy towards living things and instills an environmental ethic. In Scandinavia, Europe, Japan, Brazil, Mexico and the US, growing trends encourage place-based outdoor learning based on a combination of experiences in forests, community, and culture. For parents, teachers and school children, the benefits of being in forests also counter numerous ills which beset youth today such as asthma, allergies, ADHD, obesity, myopia, depression, and anxiety.
The current chasm between children and nature has been described by scholars as the “extinction of experience.” Initiatives to bring youth closer to nature, and to support them in constructively facing the crises of climate change and biodiversity loss, bolster students’ inner strength, and foster a sense of meaning and agency to catalyze positive, collective change. As a transdisciplinary approach to solving complex problems, innovative, outdoor education holds the potential to address the array of ecosystem, health, and sustainability challenges facing the planet.
Equitable Impact Pathways: Rural,Urban and Diverse
Youth Stewards: Foster environmental knowledge and careers for high school students and young adults in critical areas such as urban forestry, climate resilience, wetlands, ethnobotany, forest restoration, indigenous management systems, mapping land use trends, sustainable land use, and geothermal and solar power.
Teachers: Transform K-12 education to include experiential and place-based learning in nature and communities, leading to deeper knowledge, understanding, and empathy for local flora, fauna, waterways, and biological and cultural diversity. Work with school districts and educators to develop forest and nature-based curricula appropriate for state standards, while enhancing experiential learning focusing on vulnerable landscapes and underrepresented people.
Advocates: Bridge the gap between local communities and policy making through training programs that teach youth how to constructively engage with governmental entities to achieve policy and regulatory change, and practical outcomes for specific ecosystems and lands, as part of wider efforts to enhance climate resilience, forest and watershed protection, flood and fire mitigation, and human health.
Local and Global Communities: Document land use change, biocultural traditions, and the array of ecosystem services communities possess. Youth stewards will analyze problems with communities and bring fresh ideas, energy, and cross sectoral, operational solutions as part of training and practical outreach activities. Knowledge exchanges between local and global communities and intergenerational exchanges will compliment and catalyze both technological and nature-based innovations to pioneer sustainable pathways for the future.