Abstract
Forest education activities have been widely carried out as forest environmental education and tree learning education, which we call, “Moku-iku”. But the educational purposes of forest education have not been established yet, so activities related to forest education have been poorly understood as part of school education. In order to propose a theory about the educational purposes of forest education, we analyzed the educational purposes of school education, and definitions about forests and forest education. Furthermore, we classified the contents of purposes about forest education based on the description from literatures related to precedent activities about forest education. The purposes of forest education were proposed based on these results and an angle of what functions forest education could be carried out in future society and education. The purposes of forest education were proposed as “education through direct experience in forests for human resources who know regional forests as a natural environment and trees as circulation resources, who have acquired skill and awareness of forests, and who will support and promote a culture which establishes symbiosis with nature and a sustainable society”. Learning forest education is part of five kinds of “basic aspects of forests” (diversity, life, production, relation, and finiteness), and five kinds of “basic concepts about the relationship between forests and human society” (reality, regionality, culture, science, and sustainability).
