• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.25 no.9
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• pp.1323-1328
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• 2016

This study aims to identify the beneficial effects of forest experience on emotional changes in young children who are exposed to smartphones in daily life. This research was conducted on 41 children aged five and six years at a kindergarten in Chungcheongnamdo province. The children participated in a five-month forest experience program, conducted twice a week. Before beginning the study, its purpose and procedure were explained to the children's parents and kindergarten teachers, after which written content was collected. Before and after the five-month experience, questionnaires about smartphone use and emotional conditions were administered through the parents. The participants were divided into two groups, namely average-use and high-use groups, depending on the smartphone addiction proneness score. It was found that negative psychological subscales such as anxiety, impulse, and depression decreased following the five-month forest experience in both groups. Positive psychological attitudes such as sociability and creativity increased significantly after the forest experience. The high-use group showed a wider range of positive changes compared to the average-use group. Accordingly, forest experiences can be used as an effective solution for smartphone addiction problems among young children.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.541-552
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• 2018

This study investigated for perception about particulate matter in daily lives of mothers who have children aged from three to five years old and the difference of perception after participating in forest experience programs. The data were compiled from 122 mothers of preschoolers composed by 61 mothers who participated in the forest experience and those who did not. 82.8 percent of 122 mothers were concerned with particulate matters, and 84.4 percent frequently checked information on particulate matters. However, they lacked knowledge, countermeasures, and active practice to reduce it. Awareness of forest and fine particulate matter was high among mothers who had participated in the forest experience, with a high positive perception of forest role and forest environment. Therefore, expanding the opportunity for mothers to actively experience forest will contribute not only the forest experience in infants being activated but also to improve harmful environment such as fine particulate matter.

• Hwankyungkyoyuk
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.97-114
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• 2010

The aims of this study are to develop and apply a Nature Game program for the ecological experience learning in Jeju Gotjawal forest and analyze the environmental sensitivity change of the students. The results obtained in 4th graders of A elementary school of Seogwipo-city are as follows: It was found that attention, susceptibility and practice will of environment protection for forest environment of the experimental class were significantly higher than those of the comparison class. And it was found that interest and curiosity into forest environment were also elevated in the results of the qualitative evaluation, suggesting that we could get the effect of developed Nature Game program on ecological experience learning. If various ecological experience learning programs considering the regional-specific characteristics are developed to cause students' interest and curiosity, students would come to participate in the protection activity of environment aggressively a little more.

• Hwankyungkyoyuk
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.14-25
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of the forest experience on elementary students' environmental sensitivity and cognition ability. The forest experience was applied to the experimental group and the control group was taught by the traditional teaching method focused on teachers' lecture for 8 lessons. The pre-test, the 1st, and 2nd post-test for environmental sensitivity were applied to both groups to analyze the effects of the forest experience. After then the results were analyzed by One-way ANOVA and ANCOVA. And the narration test for cognition ability on learning a environmental context was applied to only the experimental group and the results were analyzed. As a result, the students' environmental sensitivity was not significantly different(p<.05) between experimental and control groups in terms of the pre-test score. However, the 1st and 2nd post-test scores of experimental group were significantly higher than those of the control group in term of the level of environmental sensitivity(F=9.28, p<.01, F=10.95, p<.01). The results of the forest experience in the aspect of cognition ability, 'the sound of nature(61%)', 'the smiling forest path which blooming out(57%)', and 'one's own places(52%) were high but 'the kinds and characteristics of the roots(30%)' was low. In conclusion, the forest experience made a positive effect on the students' environmental sensitivity and cognition ability through the direct observation, data collection, and analysis on the nearby natural environment.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.97 no.2
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• pp.152-155
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• 2008

The Korean version of Perceived Restorativeness Scale was administered to 150 SanEum Recreational Forest visitors to investigate it's psychometric properties. Factor analysis revealed that the scale consists primarily of four factors related to compatibility, preference, being away and coherence. The internal consistency of the scale was positive. Based on these tests, it appears that the scale is a sound measure of restorativeness or psychological health benefits from forest experience.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.2486-2494
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• 2015

This study is intended to look into the effects of forest experience activities for developing a moral sense on moral development of children. To achieve this, forest experience activities were performed to 40 5-year-old children from H kindergarten in Chungnam area through April 7 to July 25, 2014. They were classified into an experimental group(9 male children and 11 female children) and a control group(9 male children and 11 female children). Forest experience activities and Nuri curriculum-related forest experience activities were performed to the experimental group and the control group 10 times, respectively. The results were as follows. First, forest activity education had an effect on improving children's moral judgment. Second, moral behaviors showed that the experimental group improved in order, courtesy and moderation, which forest experience activities had a significant effect on improvement in their moral behaviors. As stated above, children's forest activities will valuable education to enhance moral development that identifies the preciousness of life through communion and interaction with nature along with peers, and order, manners and self-control by joint cooperative activities between peers.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.149-159
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• 2023

This study aimed to improve the level of satisfaction and service quality of a forest experience education program for vulnerable social groups by administering a survey problems of the program and suggested improvements. 428 participants in the program. Reliability analysis of the survey yielded values of, Cronbach's α value was higher than 0.8 for all items, indicating very high reliability. Importance-performance analysis (IPA), a method of measuring and comparing the degree of satisfaction, found two factors: "first need for correction" which included "diversity of programs" and "professionalism of programs"; and "the need for sustained effort" which included "benefits of programs", "the role of program instructors" and "the interest of programs". Previously, forest experience education focused on programs involving base expansion and promotion, or quantitative expansion education. Therefore, this study is meaningful in providing basic data on forest experience education for vulnerable social groups.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.105 no.1
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• pp.139-148
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• 2016

The purpose of this study was to evaluate critically the effects of forest experience on young children using meta-analysis. To test this, a total 30 studies were identified, and mean effect size of variables was calculated by applying Fixed-effect model. As a result, the overall effect size of forest experience on young children was 0.797. The effect sizes of daily type as a program type had an effect than experience type at the level of .939. And also the effect sizes of period program (more 4month), number of participants (10-20people), program time (180minute), dependant variables (multiple intelligence) yield effects 0.972, 0.980, 1.138 and 0.957 respectively. As the result, this study implies a way which is to derive effectively further studies on the forest experience on young children.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.18 no.12
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• pp.264-275
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• 2017

Objective: This study examines the effects of children's art activities through forest experience in relation with Nuri curriculum on environmental sensitivity. Method: A survey was administered to an experimental group of 20 children as well as a control group of 20 children for statistical analysis. after 16-class art activities through forest experience were performed to children aged 4 at a daycare center for 50 days. Result: Children's art activities through forest experience in relation with Nuri curriculum had a positive effect on their environmental sensitivity. In particular, their art activities had a positive effect on their self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy and motivation in the experimental group, supporting the educational effects and benefits of developmental children's art activities through forest experience in relation with Nuri curriculum. In other words, art activities through forest experience are useful in terms of providing children with creative expression activities in art by leading to observation and exploration, as well as educational experiences that have positive attitudes toward the environment. Conclusion: As children's art activities through forest experience have a positive effect on their environmental sensitivity, more useful information on teaching-learning methods will be able to be provided to early childhood teachers in the field. Consequently, children's art activities through forest experience need to be actively introduced in the field of early childhood education as an alternative for learning nature and improving environment-friendly emotional intelligence.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.78 no.3
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• pp.274-279
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• 1989

Self-actualization has been suggested as one of the psychological or health benefits of forest experience. This study was designed to determine to what extent participation on five-week National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) courses increased the self-actualization of participants and whether individual characteristics were correlated with the change, Data were collected at NOLS during the summer of 1987 using pretest-posttest control group design, Significant positive increases in self-actualization were found. However, individual characteristics such as sex, age, previous forest experience, place of residence and education level showed no significant effect on self-actualization change.