A four-day workshop for science teachers, leaders of several eco-clubs, and representatives of foresters, organized by MENDELU in cooperation with the German development organization GIZ, took place in the forest near Batshireet, a town located about 400 kilometers northeast of Ulaanbaatar. “The central theme of the practical seminar was how to learn to teach interactively. To give us an idea of how to interactively grasp and process a topic, we used the wolf as an example. This beast is a big topic not only in our country, but also in Mongolia. In a playful way, we went through the entire ecology of the wolf, i.e., its lifestyle, hierarchy in the pack, way of communicating, and tricks that wolves use to deceive other packs. The participants divided into packs and had to fight over who would be the alpha male and who would be the alpha female. At times, some situations resembled a rugby match,” said Petra Packová, describing the enthusiasm during the practical lesson.

For greater authenticity, workshop participants donned wolf skins, in which they tried out what it is like when wolves “track” in winter. “This is a situation where a wolf follows in the footsteps of the wolf in front of it, thereby saving energy and avoiding the need to wade through the snow unnecessarily. To an observer, our movement might have resembled a forest slalom,” said the forest educator, describing one of the tasks.

Petra Packová confirmed that the problem is not a lack of information, but the way it is conveyed. Most of the time, it is frontal teaching without illustrative examples that lead to a better understanding of the issue and the retention of new knowledge. “My colleagues and I were very pleased with the feedback we received, especially from foresters. They were literally thrilled with the interactive teaching. For me, this seminar was a great challenge. It’s one thing to teach forest pedagogy to children, but teaching adults who do this for a living is something else entirely,” she shared her further experiences.

The stay also included a forest education program focused on children, specifically the children of shepherds from the Red Waterfall area, an iconic 24-meter-high waterfall in the Orkho River valley. “That was also a very powerful experience. The ranger we were staying with picked up around 30 children aged between four and fifteen at the agreed time, and we then spent the whole afternoon playing games related to the theme of water. Water in the forest, its importance and connection to the trees in the forest, their roots, how the forest retains water, how it prevents evaporation, and so on. We experimentally investigated the power of water and whether it can destroy entire villages,” said Petra Packová, describing the event and adding further observations from the children’s afternoon: “It was clear that the shepherds’ children live in close contact with nature, and what surprises me repeatedly in Mongolia when teaching children about the forest is how capable they are of discussion. This doesn’t often happen to me during events with schoolchildren in the Czech Republic.”

Forest education activities in Mongolia culminated in participation in the popular four-day Playtime festival, which regularly attracts around 70,000 visitors. Visitors of all ages were able to take part in the varied program organized by Mendel University in the children’s zone. “Once again, we communicated pressing issues such as grazing, thawing permafrost, responses to climate change, and forests as a source of food. Mongolians really do use them in this way. When it is fruit season, they pick fruit in the forest. We demonstrated all these processes, the extent to which we should approach nature’s gifts, through simple games,” Packová concluded.

The program involving experts from MENDELU and other organizations was implemented at the end of June and beginning of July as part of the CABINETS activity funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic. It also included accompanying meetings with key partners and state institutions, such as GIZ, the Mongolian University of Life Sciences, the National Forest Agency, and the chair and members of the Standing Committee on Environment, Food, and Agriculture of the Mongolian Parliament.