Effective protected area management begins long before the first management plan. It begins with a curious child who understands, perhaps for the first time, that the nature around them is not just a landscape, but a living, valuable place that may one day also become their profession.

This is one of the things we strongly believe in at Propark – Foundation for Protected Areas, and one of the reasons why we brought environmental education directly into schools in communities located near protected areas.

For Propark, nature education is part of a broader model of protected area management. A healthy protected area needs communities that understand it, professionals who manage it with competence, and younger generations who know that the nature around them can mean more than scenery: it can mean knowledge, care, responsibility, and a possible future.

Through the project “Growing with Nature – Education and Green Jobs for the Future”, we brought this belief into classrooms in rural communities in Brașov County, located near protected areas.

In eleven schools, hundreds of children discovered what it means to work for nature and how many professions can exist around a protected area. They learned about rangers, biologists, chiropterologists, nature educators, guides, communicators, and ecotourism entrepreneurs. They asked questions, made connections with the places where they live, and began to look at the nature around them with greater attention.

For many children, the encounter with these professions was also an encounter with a new possibility: that their professional future could be connected to nature, to their community, and to the protection of the places where they grew up.

The project was not addressed only to pupils. More than 100 teachers, educators, and professionals working with children were involved in training activities and chose to carry forward what we started together. For environmental education to have continuity, it needs adults who can integrate it into their daily work, into lessons, conversations, projects, and the way children are encouraged to discover the world around them.

This is the model we believe in: living, relevant environmental education, anchored in local realities. An education that does not only provide information about nature, but creates connections between children, communities, and the protected areas near them. An education that shapes not only better-informed pupils, but also possible future professionals for Romania’s protected areas.

The film produced within the project tells, perhaps better than any report, what happened in these classrooms: curiosity, joy, questions, discoveries, and children’s first encounters with green jobs.

 “Growing with Nature – Education and Green Jobs for the Future”
 

The project “Growing with Nature – Education and Green Jobs for the Future” is part of the national programme “Mobility Matters”, funded by Dacia Foundation for Romania, sponsored by Automobile Dacia, and implemented by Propark – Foundation for Protected Areas, together with our partner, Krontechies Association.

Through this project, nature education came closer to children living near protected areas, and green jobs became more visible, more concrete, and closer to their world.

Because the future of protected areas also begins in school, where a child discovers that the nature around them deserves to be understood, protected, and perhaps, one day, chosen as a professional path.