Environmental themes and ecosystem services (ES) in picture books about forests for education for sustainability

抄録

Learning about the concept of forest ecosystem services (FES) from early childhood will help future generations grow to value and manage forests that are deteriorating globally. This study was developed based on the perspective that picture books about forests can facilitate children’s knowledge about the forests, form positive emotions with them and feel connected, and function as a triggering source to make children act sustainably toward forests. The study employed content analysis to explore the presence and association between environmental themes and FES categories depicted in 169 picture books about forests. The study revealed that compared to other environmental themes and FES categories, themes related to the behavioral domain (e.g., ‘conservation effort’) and regulating services category were less depicted, respectively. In addition, the depiction of regulating, cultural, and supporting services categories were both positively and negatively associated with the depiction of some particular environmental themes. In the following, we discuss several trends that emerged from the analysis and their implications for research and practice.