The Development and Implementation of Elementary Outdoor Programs at Guandu Nature Center —An Action Research

• Main Authors: Liu, Kuan Miao, 劉冠妙
• Other Authors: Ju Chou
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2004
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/39172672396115437375

碩士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 環境教育研究所 === 92 === “Guandu Nature Park” is located in southwest of the Kuandu Plain in Taipei Basin, where the Keelung River joins the Tamshui River. On December 1, 2001, the Wild Bird Society of Taipei was entrusted by the Taipei City Government with management of the park, becoming the first nonprofit organization to do so. The Wild Bird Society’s years of care for this wetland were thus officially recognized. This is an excellent example of a governmental organization and a civic organization working together to achieve environmental preservation as well as public education. The purpose of this participant action research is to explore how Guandu Nature Center develops the elementary school outdoor programs, and the meaning of the problem solving process. The research is from April 2002 to May 2003,during about fourteen months. The working group are seven people, consisted of the staffs of Guandu Nature Center, the students of Graduate Institute of Environmental Education of Nation Taiwan Normal University, and researcher went through four stages: problem identification, elementary school outdoor programs development, environmental education teachers workshop, programs implementation, ending and reflection, to proceed the cycle of programs design, implement, reflection, correction, and re-implement. The main concerns of this research were: (1) The problems and meanings of the Guandu Nature Center develop and implement the elementary school outdoor programs. (2) The effectiveness and meanings of the elementary school outdoors programs in Guandu Nature Center. (3) How the staffs of Guandu Nature Center repeatedly reflect and correct in the process of develop and implement the programs in order to make professional development? The research adopted participant action research in order to resolve practical problem rather than to generalize the result. In order to further the understanding of the feasibility of promoting environmental education in the Guandu Nature Center programs and staffs’ professional development during the process of participant action research, the researcher employed in-depth interview, participant observation, and document collection as data collection techniques; checked and analyzed the data from different time and sources, then displayed the whole research process. The findings of this research show that the outdoors programs in Guandu Nature Center are good opportunity to promote environmental education to elementary school. The program is the core element, and will affect the people, facilities, and operations of Nature Center. Before developing the programs, we should to find out the mission and goal of the nature center, compose the professional environmental education programs develop group, realize the customers’ needs, prepare for market plan, train the program teachers and other people who will relate to the programs, and mark sure the valuations are designed in the programs. After the research, the working group makes professional development; they had more understanding of programs development, nature centers, and environmental education. The working group began to concern and take action to the programs in Guandu Nature Center. The researcher proposed some suggestions on the concerns of Guandu Nature Center, programs designer, and the other nature centers. Some view about future research and development were also suggested.