Topics - Forests, Climate, Rainforests - our educational offers

Protect the forests - benefit for the climate

Event for schools and extra-curricular educational institutions to make clear connections between forest and climate protection and to show possibilities how young people can become active themselves.

1. Understand forests - protect forests
An event in the forest to experience this complex and fascinating ecosystem directly and to get to know its many inhabitants, from mammals and birds to diverse microorganisms in the ground, trees, herbs and mushrooms.
From direct forest experience in the local forest, we build bridges to the world's forests, such as the tropical rainforest or the forests of the subarctic climate zone.
We learn what these different forest forms are, what they are particularly threatening and how they can be protected.                                                                                                                              

2. Handling paper
The global consumption of paper and cardboard is enormous and partly responsible for the destruction of many forests.
But what can each of us do?
Large amounts of paper are used especially in schools and other educational institutions. We learn how to reduce your paper consumption and which paper is best for the environment and what the individual seals of approval, such as FSC or the “Blue Angel” mean.
In an experiment, the students collect all of their family's paper packaging waste for a whole week and bring it with them. We use it to produce recycled paper ourselves.                                

3. Palm oil and soy
Palm oil can be found in countless foods, but also in soaps, shampoos and many other things.
At home, we research the packaging of food for its share of palm oil.
We quickly come across chocolates, chocolate creams and all sorts of sweets.
But what is the alternative?
Is there chocolate cream and chocolate without palm oil? We go on the Internet, health food store and in the supermarket.
We follow the path of soybeans from their growing areas in Asia and South America to the end consumers, often large beef-producing companies and on to the large fast food restaurants.
We are researching which soy is healthy, for example in organic products, and when soy is bad for us and the rainforest.

4. No tropical wood
Many nature conservation organizations such as "Save the Rainforest" advise against using no tropical wood at all, since tropical forests can hardly be managed sustainably. On the one hand, the humus layer is often far too thin and is destroyed when logging. On the other hand, tropical forests are far too complex to be reforested.
We get to know connections about the tropical forest, why tropical wood is so popular with consumers and what alternatives there are in the domestic forest.
In this event, wood is worked, carved, sawn and planed directly to get to know the properties of different woods.

5. Plant trees
Together we collect tree seeds in the forest and set up a tree nursery at the Center for Global Sustainability and raise the trees together.
In consultation with the forestry office, we plant our drawn trees on selected areas. But this can also be done in the school yard, in the parents' garden or in other planting projects.
We always try to find a tree sponsor for every tree that is planted, which provides a small amount with which we can help finance further planting or forest protection projects, also in other parts of the world.
On the premises of the Center for Global Sustainability, we get to know an edible forest, a food forest (permaculture), which is growing there.

6. Support indigenous forest peoples
Only about 5% of the world's population is indigenous or tribal. However, they inhabit about 25% of the global land area, mostly areas that were previously of little interest to industrialized countries, such as savannas, deserts, high mountains or primeval forests.
However, around 80% of the remaining biodiversity is found in the area of indigenous peoples, which shows the importance of these people for nature conservation.
Many indigenous people are currently being expelled from their country, for example to plant palm oil or soy plantations, but often also for reasons of nature conservation.
We learn about indigenous peoples with the teaching materials of various human rights organizations and see what we can do for indigenous peoples ourselves and how we can help them protect the forests.

7. Handy recycling campaign
Various metals, such as gold, copper or coltan, are required for a cell phone, smartphone, tablet or laptop to work. Coltan in particular can only be found in a few places on earth, for example in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But there is dense rainforest, in which forest elephants, gorillas and many other wild animals live. The coltan is mostly mined by the local people, often by children, under the simplest conditions.
An estimated 124 million old cell phones are in German drawers and are no longer used. If you were to recycle them, millions of new cell phones could be built without destroying the rainforest.
We set up a cell phone collection point, write an article for the local or school newspaper and make the topic known regionally.
We donate the collected cell phones to the zoological society Frankfurt am Main, which supports gorilla protection projects in the Congo. Protecting the gorillas also means protecting their homeland, the second largest rainforest on earth.

The topics can be booked as three-hour blocks as part of a project week over 5 days, but also as individual events.
The events take place in the Center for Global Sustainability Darmstadt (www.zentrum-globale-nachhaltigkeit.de), in the surrounding forest or are also possible in schools or in the forest close to school.