15th
 anniversary
 of WNP

WIGRY NATIONAL PARK

Special issue

of "WIGRY"
quarterly
magazine


Webdesign: 
KAJA
 
2004

Joanna Adamczewska

Education

National parks protect natural and cultural values. Natural and anthropogenic elements intermingle and create the present-day look of the landscape. The necessity to integrate nature conservation and cultural heritage finds its expression in educational activities of the parks, combining ecological and cultural education.

The education is conducted through the following: a developed network of trails whose important element are information boards, natural and ethnographic exhibitions, and publications. The Park conducts active educational work within the Green Schools at the center for Environmental Education, as well as through classes on educational trails, cooperation with schools, educational events and actions, contests, workshops and artistic plein-air events.

Publications by the Wigry National Park are free in most cases. They are given to school libraries and local institutions. They are given out at fairs and various events, workshops and classes. The quarterly Wigry is a very special publication.

On the Wigry National Park’s internet site www.wigry.win.pl there is information about nature and culture of the region.

The establishment of the Wigry National Park resulted in a number of publications, which were devoted to both nature and culture. The publications aroused interest in nature conservation problems. Activities within ecological education have become more intense after the Wigry National Park was established. Over these 15 years of the Park’s existence many forms of ecological education have been developed, many have been improved or modified, adjusted to the needs of recipients and the Park’s, constantly expanding, didactic base. At first, educational activities of the Park consisted in giving lectures, talks and organizing field trips. The activities which are undertaken evolve, and their form is a result of search for not commonplace solutions and proposals, with the aim of influencing the recipients’ awareness and forming in them respect for natural and cultural heritage.

For many years the Park has been an organizer of mass events, e.g. the International Earth's Day, the Clean up the World action, the Relay Race of Protected Areas of Podlaskie Province (cycling rally). The examples of educational activities presented above do not exhaust all the range of forms which the Park has proposed so far. We are striving after getting involved in initiatives of a wider range – provincial or national ones. Such a diversity of our activities would not be possible without additional sources of financing from various funds – we manage to get a substantial part of financial means from the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management and the Provincial Fund For Environmental Protection and Water Management in Bialystok.

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