| Research Abstract |
Once I entered into a thick forest attached to Buddhism Minobu-San Temple in order to bathe the forest air and to examine the quality of the air, which has been a famous sacred place for the Buddhism believers to pray and to lead an ascetic life. The forest formed an ecosystem composed of several kinds of large trees with tightly extended roots, various insect species, birds, and a spring coming out in the lower ground.
Air tight indoor environment as a school building shielded with double glassed window to prevent noise pollution often brings unexpected increase in atmospheric temperature and humidity, drowsy and listless feeling to the class room school children, and stimulation by air pollutants to upper respiratory tracts. These bad conditions were actually experienced by us.
Volatile chemicals from plants such as alpha-pinene is a kind of stimulants, and live plants absorb air pollutants.
We tried to introduce pot plants in an air tight class room, which caused class room children to
… More
improve their fatigue and choking feeling due to the raised room temperature and the tight air. Concentration of carbon dioxide and mitrogen dioxide in the room decreased little, as the number of plants to school children were too small to improve the room air quality. If the motorization in the urban area will become more serious,
air quality in class rooms is hardly expected that forest conservation and green school program should be promoted in and out of the school.
In the final year, we tried to to develop teaching materials to environmental education, not only considering the mutual relation of "forest with human life and health" but also introducing interdiciprinary aspects of agriculture, engineering, forestry, ecology, architecture, and environmental conservation. Theaching materials for environmental education were developed extracting the related areas of curricula which could raise his/her life force. The three steps were considered : 1) Information retrieval of the natural history how the forest had been friendly and curative for man. 2) To construct a new paradigm unifying natural science and humanity. 3) To make use of the developing process itself to the course.
The forest will provide man improved air refreshed and conditioned by plants, which regulate autonomic nervous system, endocrine system, and immune system, increasing his self-cure force. In addition, the forest conserve the ecosystem, regulating water cycle, soil, and air. The forest makes a starting point of human education. Man evolved and developed symbiotic with forests. Those facts and concepts were used to develop our new teaching materials in the unifying curriculum of environmental education. Less
|
